Will You Be There?
by Witchy Girl
Summary: When Ron and Hermione receive the worst possible news, they are left with only each other to lean upon. Can they escape the horror of the reality without losing themselves all together?
1. Default Chapter

A/N: Hi! This is my first attempt at fanfic, and I really want to know what all of you think. Please leave feedback if you like it and want to read more. I'm open to constructive criticism, too, so feel free to leave advice and tips. (  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone depicted in this story (at least not at the moment). They all belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, WB, and a whole lot of other people that I don't have time to type out.  
  
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Ron Weasley sat in his normal spot at the back of Professor Trelanwey's classroom. The seventh year student had sat at the same table for four years; in fact, the whole class looked much the same as it had in third year with only a few differences. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown still occupied the front table, and besides the years added onto their age, both girls looked just as giddy and interested in Divination as they had when they were thirteen. Ron's roommates, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and Neville Longbottom, still looked just as amused by Professor Trelawney as they had four years before. Professor Trelawney herself was still prancing around in her horn-rimmed glasses predicting despair and misery for everyone and praising Parvati and Lavender immensely. The only real difference between the make up of the class on that day and the make up of the class on the first day of third year was the obvious absence of two of its students.  
  
Ron's own best friends, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.  
  
Hermione had been absent from the Divination picture for quite sometime- since maybe half-way through the third year. She'd stormed out in a huff after a row with Trelawney about the reality of the "art" and had dropped the class immediately.  
  
But Harry had stuck with Divination right along with Ron. They'd sat at the back table together up until two months ago when Harry had been snuck out of school and placed into hiding. No one, except the headmaster of their school, Albus Dumbledore, knew the whereabouts of this hideout. Ron only knew that Harry had been taken in the middle of the night one evening and placed into hiding with his godfather, convicted murderer Sirius Black. Harry hadn't known it beforehand, and Ron hadn't known until he'd woken up to find Harry's bed empty and his cubby bare. It was bad enough that Harry wasn't there, but what made the situation even worse was the fact that there were strict and absolute restrictions against any and all communication with him. No owls were to be exchanged at all, and Ron hadn't heard anything from Harry in two long months.  
  
"Mr. Weasley," Trelawney's irritating whisper cut through Ron's thoughts, "what do you see in your leaves?"  
  
Ron glanced down at his teacup and furrowed his brow. Four years of tea leaf reading, and his inner-eye still only showed him a pile of leftovers.  
  
Not even bothering to make up a prediction, he shrugged. "A pile of soggy, brown mush."  
  
Dean, Seamus, and Neville snickered loudly, and Ron glimpsed the girls turning around to roll their eyes at him. Professor Trelawney, however, was far from amused. She instantly reached down and picked Ron's teacup up for her own evaluation.  
  
An overly-dramatic frown covered her face, and she closed her eyes, obviously against the horrors that the cup held.  
  
"What?" Ron snapped, not at all in the mood to have his murder predicted.  
  
Trelawney shook her head and opened her eyes to look sympathetically at him. "You will be receiving terrible news very soon."  
  
The other guys laughed when Ron sighed loudly and rolled his eyes.  
  
The teacher, though, ignored them and finished her prediction. "news about young Mr. Potter."  
  
The laughter instantly stopped as all the other Gryffindors looked around warily at Ron for his reaction. The topic of Harry was very much avoided in the Gryffindor Common Room. No one really wanted to talk about him because everyone had their own personal fears about the situation. And if anyone did talk about it, they knew better than to do so in front of Ron or Hermione. Ron had walked into his dormitory on more than one occasion to find his roommates instantly splitting up and silencing themselves upon his appearance.  
  
And as Trelawney dared to make one of her stupid predictions about Harry at a time when he actually was in real danger, Ron found himself having to force himself not to reach for his wand and hex her. He couldn't quite believe she had the audacity to take the situation so lightly.  
  
Knowing that if he looked at the awful woman for a moment longer, he would definitely do something he would later regret, Ron took a deep breath and silently gathered up his books. Then, calmly swinging his bag over his shoulder, he walked wordlessly to the trap door and opened it. He heard the teacher demand that he take his seat, but he ignored her and climbed the ladder down to the level below the Divination classroom. He wasn't sure where he was going, so he simply started walking aimlessly through the corridors.  
  
About ten minutes later, Ron heard the sharp voice of the Transfiguration professor behind him. "Mr. Weasley!" Ron stopped instantly and turned around to face Professor McGonagall guiltily. "Why aren't you in class?"  
  
Ron glanced at the floor, quickly trying to think up an excuse that sounded better than, "I walked out of Divination because Trelawney pissed me off." The best he came up with was, "Uh."  
  
To his surprise, though, she didn't launch into a huge chewing out. She looked quite worn down, actually, as if she was simply too tired to discipline him. Instead, she almost regretfully said, "You need to go to the Headmaster."  
  
Ron was shocked. He didn't think that skipping half of a class was enough to warrant a trip to the Headmaster's office. He'd done things much worse in his seven years at Hogwarts that hadn't resulted in an appointment with Dumbledore.  
  
He tried to plead his case. "But. I just."  
  
Professor McGonagall interrupted him with a shake of the head. "Just follow me, Mr. Weasley."  
  
She didn't wait for a reply. She turned in the direction of the headmaster's office, and Ron reluctantly followed her. He took notice of the fact that she purposely walked a few steps ahead of him, and Ron had some unknown suspicion that she was doing this in order to avoid looking at him.  
  
He went over various excuses that he could give Dumbledore about his whereabouts when McGonagall had caught him wandering the corridors during school hours. He was sure that no amount of sympathy was going to get him out of trouble with his parents if they received an owl about their youngest son walking out of a lesson. He thought back to when Hermione had done the exact same thing in third year. She hadn't gotten into any trouble at all; he somehow didn't think this was quite fair.  
  
His thoughts about Hermione were interrupted, though, as he followed Professor McGonagall into Dumbledore's office and saw her sitting in one of the plush chairs across the room. Hermione looked up when he entered, and he noticed that she was looking just as confused as he felt.  
  
Ron wracked his brain trying to think of anything they'd done recently that could have landed them in Dumbledore's office, but nothing came to mind. Since Harry had been gone, they really hadn't done much of anything except study and play the occasional game of chess to distract themselves from the fact that they weren't sleeping as well as they should have been. They'd snuck back to the dormitory after curfew a few nights ago because they'd managed to lose track of time while Hermione was tutoring him on Shrinking Charms in the library. But she was Head Girl, and she had special privileges that other students didn't have; being in the library after hours was surely one of them.  
  
There was something in the way that Professor McGonagall simply crossed the room and stood in the corner, quite obviously avoiding both of her students, that told Ron that this wasn't simply a scolding about rule- breaking. Professor Dumbledore was sitting at his desk silently, his face solemn and grave in a way that didn't help to ease the tension of the room. He looked up when Ron walked in and addressed him quietly.  
  
"Mr. Weasley, please sit down."  
  
Ron looked on curiously, but he followed the directions and sat down in the maroon chair beside Hermione. "Are we in trouble?" He glanced at his female best friend who raised her eyebrows in question.  
  
Dumbledore sighed quietly and shook his head. "No. There's just something we need to tell you. You need to hear it from us before you hear it elsewhere."  
  
Ron didn't really like the sound of that, and apparently neither did Hermione because she spoke up at that time. "Well, if you don't mind, Sir, I'd better get back to Arithmancy. We were in the middle of a very important lesson, and I've already missed quite a bit." Ron could tell by the nervous tone of her voice that she didn't want to hear whatever they had to say because she was scared.  
  
"I'm sorry, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore answered timidly, "but this is very important."  
  
Hermione twisted anxiously in her sat and looked down at the floor. Ron watched her as she tried desperately not to notice that Professor McGonagall kept wiping at her eyes. He was quite sure he didn't want to hear what the headmaster had to say, either.  
  
There was a moment of what seemed like an eternity of silence before Dumbledore finally spoke again. His voice actually quivered as he said the next sentence. "This morning, there was an attack. And it involved Mr. Potter."  
  
His words left a deafening silence ringing in the office until Hermione finally broke it. "Where's Harry now?" Her voice was strangely confident, as though she strongly believed that Harry was getting fixed up in the infirmary at that very moment by Madame Pomfrey.  
  
Ron knew better. He knew what was coming next- he'd known from the moment he'd walked into the graveness of the office.  
  
But he refused to believe it.  
  
Staring straight ahead, Ron missed the sympathetic look that the Headmaster sent their way. He didn't see the old man's eyes brim with tears. He didn't notice that Professor McGonagall had her own eyes closed and her head bowed. And he didn't see Hermione pleading with her eyes for them to confirm her silly belief. But he did hear the words.  
  
"Harry. Harry is dead."  
  
These three words, four if the repetition was counted, would change their worlds forever. Ron didn't flinch at the news, and for a long, long moment, the only sound heard was the small, choked sob from Professor McGonagall. Suddenly, though, Hermione made a gagging noise and clutched her mouth quickly.  
  
She was going to throw up.  
  
All in an instance, the Transfiguration teacher had rushed to her side, and Professor Dumbledore had pressed the magical intercom button and was paging Madame Pomfrey.  
  
Ron simply looked at her.  
  
And then, out of nowhere, he spoke. "Leave her alone."  
  
Professor McGonagall looked up sympathetically and sent a pitying look in his direction. But Ron wasn't having any of her pity.  
  
Because the moment the words were spoken, he stopped believing them.  
  
"Ron." Professor McGonagall spoke using his first name, a rarity she'd used only a few times over the years. She was clearly trying to "soothe his pain," but he didn't need any soothing.  
  
Ignoring his teacher, he spoke directly to the girl on his left.  
  
"Hermione, stop it." He sent her a sharp look, and she met his eye for only a second before whimpering softly and breaking down into shaking sobs.  
  
Professor McGonagall immediately wrapped an arm around her, infuriating Ron. He jumped to his feet and heatedly addressed them. "Just leave her alone! She's fine!" He literally pushed his teacher out of the way and started commanding the younger woman. "Hermione, stop crying," he said sternly. "Just stop it!"  
  
Hermione sent him a bewildered look, and Professor Dumbledore crossed the room, laying a comforting hand on Ron's arm. Ron, though, shrugged away and started yelling at the old man.  
  
"Get away from me, you lying bastard!"  
  
This really sent Hermione over the edge, and she broke down completely, She wrapped her hands into the hair at the sides of her face and tugged in frustration as she squeezed her eyes shut against the reality of the situation.  
  
Ron was furious with her.  
  
Completely ignoring the way both of his professors were looking warily at him, he started yelling at Hermione. "Would you just stop it?! Just stop crying!"  
  
When she gave no sign of adhering to his commands, he literally took matters into his own hands and yanked her to her feet roughly. Gripping her shoulders tightly, he shook her. "They're lying! Do you hear me? Look at me!" Hermione opened her eyes and raised her head to look tearfully at him, what was very possibly fear showing in her brown eyes. Ron spoke to her sternly. "They're lying."  
  
Hermione whimpered once more and shook her head slowly. "Ron."  
  
Professor McGonagall made another move to comfort Hermione, but Ron yanked his friend away and glared at the teacher. "Don't you dare fucking touch her," he warned dangerously.  
  
McGonagall bit her lower lip and turned slowly to the Headmaster who shook his head silently. Ron ignored them both and turned his attention back to Hermione.  
  
"Don't you listen to them, you hear me?"  
  
Hermione closed her eyes and tried desperately to calm her tears momentarily. Trying to reason with him, she quietly said, "Ron, please stop."  
  
But Ron was outraged. Digging his fingertips even more deeply into her shoulders, he responded angrily. "No, you stop it! Stop crying, damn it!"  
  
Hermione squirmed slightly, crying even more as she pleaded with him. "Ron, stop. Please! You're hurting me."  
  
Ron instantly let go of her and took a step backwards. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn't bring himself to it. Instead, he just glared at her. "Harry is not dead," he said dryly. "And you know that, Hermione. You know he wouldn't just fucking die without even saying goodbye!"  
  
She stared silently at him for a moment before finally losing it all together and completely breaking down. "Please," she begged quietly. "Please, don't do this."  
  
Ron had never been angrier with her in his entire life.  
  
How could she possibly believe that horrible bastard? How could he be so cruel as to lie about something as terrible as what he'd just said? And why was Hermione believing him? Didn't she know that Harry wouldn't do that to them? He wouldn't just up and get himself killed and leave them all alone! And Hermione should have known that.  
  
Completely disgusted with her, he glared once more at her before turning and stalking out of the office wordlessly.  
  
Hermione watched him go before covering her face with her hands and sliding silently down the wall and to the ground.  
  
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Ron walked aimlessly down the corridor, anger and hurt coursing through his veins all the while. He couldn't and wouldn't believe anything that had just been said in that room. They were lying, and Hermione was just too damn gullible.  
  
Harry wouldn't do that to them.  
  
He just wouldn't. Harry knew better than to go and get himself killed, and Ron refused to believe any different. There's no way that he would just leave them like that with no warning whatsoever.  
  
Ron didn't know where he was going, but he didn't care, either. All he knew was that he needed to get as far away from Dumbledore's office as possible. He was walking quickly and pointedly, though with no real destination. It wasn't until he spotted a flash of red hair that he slowed and took notice of his surroundings.  
  
At first, he thought the figure was Ginny, but upon a second look, he realized that the redhead was, in fact, his mother. She was hurrying quickly toward him, her face pale and a worried expression covering her features. Ron stopped walking and simply waited for her to meet him. When she did, he suddenly felt strangely weak.  
  
"Oh, Ron," she breathed quietly, reaching up to place an unsteady hand against his cheek. She was much shorter than him, but her presence was simply overpowering.  
  
In a quivering voice that he didn't recognize as his own, he quietly spoke. "Mum, Dumbledore said." He couldn't force himself to say the words, but he knew his mother already understood. Desperately, he said, "But it's not true." After a small pause, he weakly said, "Is it?"  
  
Mrs. Weasley bit down on her lower lip, and Ron could tell that she was about to burst into tears. With no verbal answer, she barely gave a nod as she looked up at him sympathetically. Quietly, she finally spoke. "I'm sorry."  
  
Ron stared silently at her for a long, long moment. Then, with his lip quivering dangerously, he allowed himself to be pulled into his mother's consoling embrace. As she hugged him, he felt as if he'd suddenly decreased in age by a decade and was merely seven years old all over again. He wanted desperately to escape back to that time when he could simply crawl into his mother's lap and all worries and pains could be taken away with a simple kiss on his forehead.  
  
He was vaguely aware of her hand smoothing down his unruly locks in the same fashioned habit that she'd had since he was a toddler. He knew that it was his mum and that it would be okay for him to break down in her arms. He knew he could cry to her and that he probably needed to.  
  
But he didn't.  
  
He couldn't really. There was something holding the tears back, and he couldn't force them to fall. Maybe he was in shock, but he didn't know. He couldn't really comprehend too much of anything at the moment. All he knew for sure was that his mother would never, ever lie to him.  
  
Harry was dead.  
  
Dead.  
  
His best friend in the world was dead. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was helpless. What was done was done, and there was nothing to bring Harry back. He was dead, and Ron was forced to do nothing at all except deal with the words.  
  
He felt his mother pull away reluctantly, and he saw her blue eyes look sadly up at him. She kept one hand on his shoulder as she questioned him. "Honey, where's Hermione?"  
  
Hermione.  
  
He'd hurt her. She'd said so herself. He'd been so mean to her, and Harry was dead. And he didn't know why. Why had he yelled at her? Why had he shaken her like he had?  
  
Why was Harry dead?  
  
Shaking his head slowly, he managed to make out a few comprehensible words. "I think she's. in Dumbledore's office."  
  
Mrs. Weasley nodded slightly, reaching up to brush some of her youngest son's hair out of his face. "I'm going to take you both home, okay?"  
  
Ron nodded unevenly, not really knowing what else to do. He couldn't think clearly, so he simply went along with everything his mother was saying.  
  
She looked sadly at him once more before gently leading him back down the hall in the direction of the Headmaster's office. The door was still open, and they entered the office to see Professor Dumbledore conversing quietly with someone through the fire that Ron couldn't see and Professor McGonagall comforting a now sobbing Hermione.  
  
Ron saw his best female friend and knew he should feel awful. But he couldn't.  
  
He couldn't feel anything.  
  
Professor McGonagall looked up when Mrs. Weasley and her son entered the office and looked meaningfully at the earlier of the two. The two women exchanged silent conversation through a few passed looks, but Ron was simply too evaded to even try and comprehend the meaning.  
  
Mrs. Weasley crossed the room and gently took the crying girl into her arms as Professor McGonagall stood up and took a small step backwards. Ron stood back silently as he watched his mother whispering something to Hermione as the younger buried her face into the elder's shoulder and cried desperately, her whole body convulsing with the sobs that were escaping her throat.  
  
It was the sight of Hermione crying so hard that finally forced Ron to look away. As he did, he caught sight of the head in the fireplace that was talking quietly with his headmaster.  
  
It was Sirius Black.  
  
He was surprised to see Sirius looking back at him silently. They looked at each other for a short moment before Sirius turned away and said something to Dumbledore that Ron couldn't hear. He saw the headmaster nod once, and then Sirius' head disappeared. Moments later, however, he appeared in the room with a quiet "Pop."  
  
Obviously, it was acceptable to Apparate into Hogwarts under certain circumstances. Ironically, Hermione didn't even seem to notice that her favorite bit of quoting wasn't completely true.  
  
Sirius crossed the room silently until he stood directly in front of Ron. Neither of them spoke for a minute until Sirius quietly instructed the younger man to follow him into the corridor.  
  
Ron was hesitant, but he followed nonetheless. When they were in the privacy of the corridor away from a sobbing Hermione, Mrs. Weasley, and two bewildered professors, Ron noticed that Sirius' face was paler than normal and that his eyes were red in contrast. He'd been crying.  
  
Sirius Black had been crying.  
  
When he finally spoke, Sirius' voice was unsteady and uncertain. He didn't seem sure of what he wanted to say but rather seemed as if he was speaking because it was what was expected of him. "Ron. I'm sorry."  
  
And all at once, something inside of Ron cleared, and he was finally able to see the whole picture and comprehend what was going on. Anger like he'd never felt before surfaced, and he glared at Harry's godfather. His voice was icy and scathing all at once as he spoke. "This is all your fault."  
  
Sirius closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he spoke in a reasoning voice. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Sorry, my arse," Ron said angrily. "You fucking killed my best friend."  
  
"Ron, I." He didn't get a chance to finish his explanation because Ron cut him off.  
  
"You were supposed to be protecting him! That's what they told us. When Harry left, they said, 'Don't worry. Sirius will take care of him and make sure nothing happens.' You were supposed to protect him!" Ron was finally letting his emotions out, woe behold the receiver.  
  
"There was nothing I could do," Sirius said desperately. He didn't raise his voice; instead, it seemed as if he was about to break down into tears. "I'm sorry!"  
  
"You can be sorry all you want, but it's not going to bring him back." Ron glared hatefully at the older man. "You killed him! You didn't take care of him like you were supposed to, and now he's dead. You killed him! You killed my best friend!" Sirius didn't speak; he looked like he was trying desperately not to completely break down. When he gave no response, Ron grew even angrier and lost it all together. He forcefully shoved Sirius backwards against the stone wall and held him there as he spoke again. This time, though, instead of yelling, he spoke evenly. "You killed his parents, and now you've killed him."  
  
This was all it took, as it was clearly too much for Sirius to handle. He looked at his godson's best friend for only another few seconds before breaking down into broken sobs and muttering apologies over and over again. Ron didn't even know who he was apologizing to anymore, and Sirius probably didn't, either. He appeared to have gone into a trance and was looking more pitiful than any convicted murderer ever should.  
  
But Ron felt no pity.  
  
He wanted to punch the other man. He wanted to pummel him and punch him until all the rage he was feeling was gone. He wanted Sirius to feel the same sort of pain that he was feeling, but he knew that this wasn't possible with merely a pair of fists. And anyway, Sirius seemed to be suffering enough as he looked aimlessly at the ground and cried, murmuring apologies over and over again.  
  
Ron let go of him just as the door to the office opened and the entourage of people inside came into the hallway. Hermione was between his mother and Professor McGonagall; she seemed to be having trouble standing. The headmaster quickly walked over to the two men and placed a soothing hand on the older's shoulder, leading him back into the office. Ron watched them disappear before looking over to the three females.  
  
No one spoke for a long moment until Professor McGonagall quietly said, "I've sent for Ginny. She should be here shortly."  
  
Mrs. Weasley nodded weakly, and almost as if on cue, Ginny came hurrying down the corridor, her face wrought with nervousness. When she saw the scene before her, she halted abruptly and looked questioningly around at all the present people. Mrs. Weasley took a deep breath and glanced at the professor before leaving Hermione briefly and going to her only daughter. She gently took the younger girl's arm and led her around the corner for some privacy. Obviously, Ginny didn't know what had happened, yet.  
  
As the Transfiguration professor stood with two of her Seventh Years, she looked from one to the other and took in the awkwardness between them. She felt extremely bad for both of them, but she didn't know how to deal with the situation any better than either of them did. Never in a million years had she ever expected Mr. Potter to actually get killed.  
  
He was supposed to be the Hero.  
  
A loud gasp was followed by heavy crying from somewhere around the corner. Obviously, the youngest Weasley had just been given the news that was sure to rock the entire school, not to mention the whole wizarding world in its entirety.  
  
And the two people who would probably be the most affected by the news stood silently, not even daring to look at each other.  
  
A few minutes later, Mrs. Weasley returned with a now quietly crying Ginny who was looking desperately at her older brother for some sort of response, which he was quite unwilling to give. After a few last-minute converses with Professor McGonagall, Mrs. Weasley, looking worn and terribly upset, quietly took the three teenagers home.  
  
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This isn't the end. In fact, it's just the beginning (obviously!). I have a lot planned out for this story, and I hope that you guys want to read more. If you do, please leave feedback, and I will post the next chapter soon!  
  
Thanks in advance! ( 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I wrote the first part of this a long time ago, but then things happened, and I got sidetracked. I'm sorry to anyone who has been waiting, but there were matters that couldn't be avoided.  
  
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter; please review this one, so I know if you're still interested. Thanks!  
  
Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, Scholastics, Bloomsbury, etc. etc.  
  
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Ron was sitting at his window, watching nothing in particular on the ground below. There were several gnomes running around in the garden, but he hardly noticed them at all. His mother had been up several times, knocking on his door and pleading with him to come downstairs and have something to eat. But he'd told her to go away every time she'd come up- as if he could just eat something and feel better.  
  
As if anything could make him feel better.  
  
Harry was dead.  
  
And what else mattered?  
  
Another knock at his door drew his annoyed glare, and he hatefully addressed the intruder. "Leave me alone."  
  
He thought for a moment that whoever was knocking had actually followed his order, but a quiet voice told him differently. "Ron, please open the door..."  
  
It was Hermione.  
  
Sighing, Ron slowly got up and opened the door. He could blow his mother off, but Hermione was a different story. He owed her at least opening the door after he'd been so awful to her earlier. She was standing in his hallway looking quite small and quite timid as she stared silently at him. He didn't say anything, either, and for a long time, there was nothing but a deafening silence between them.  
  
Finally, Hermione glanced at the floor and quietly asked a question. "Can I come in?"  
  
"I don't guess I can stop you, can I?" Ron asked, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice.  
  
Hermione looked up and gave him a rather piercing look. "Don't do this," she said seriously.  
  
"Don't do what?" Ron looked back at her with a raised eyebrow, awaiting news of exactly what it was that he wasn't supposed to be doing.  
  
"Don't shut everyone out like this."  
  
"I'm holding the door open, aren't I?" he said sarcastically. "You're the one who's not coming in."  
  
Hermione just looked at him and shook her head. She stepped inside and watched silently as he shut the door behind them and turned to look at her expectantly. "Did you need something?" he asked coldly. "Or did you just come up here to make things even weirder than they already are?"  
  
She ignored him. "Are you okay?"  
  
"I'm great, Hermione," he said with fake enthusiasm. "This has been the best day of my life."  
  
"Why do you have to be like that?" she asked with painfully narrowed eyes.  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Like that!"  
  
Ron looked coolly at her. "If you don't like the way I am, then maybe you should just get out of my room because no one asked you to come up here in the first place."  
  
Her face went from painful to confused to angry in a flat second. "God! Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?!"  
  
Ron was shocked momentarily by her raised voice, but he recovered quickly enough to cross his arms over his chest and look her dead in the eye. "I don't know, Hermione. Why don't you tell me?"  
  
"Fine!" She glared dangerously at him. "It's because you're too macho to let yourself feel anything! You don't have to fucking be this way!" She didn't bother to keep her voice down, and Ron flinched slightly at her tone and at her word choice, as she rarely swore about anything.  
  
There was a long moment in which Hermione glared sharply at him, and he just studied her. Finally, he snapped out of it and turned his own icy glare on her. Raising his own voice to match hers, he said, "Don't you dare fucking tell me what I do or don't feel because you don't know shit, Hermione! You might think you know everything there is to know about anything, but you really don't know a damn thing! Not about me and not about what I feel!"  
  
"Then why won't you just tell me?!" she bellowed back, her face now a bright red.  
  
"Because it's none of your damn business!" He stopped abruptly and looked at her.  
  
She looked different than he'd ever seen her look before. Like him, she hadn't bothered to change out of her school uniform, and though it was the same thing she'd worn nearly every day for the past seven years, she looked completely different. Her hair was the same, her clothes were the same, her body was the same. But her eyes... They were dull and empty, and she looked like she'd aged ten years in the past day. The Hogwarts uniform looked strangely out of place on this woman who looked much, much older than her seventeen years.  
  
It was like he didn't even know her.  
  
All at once, he turned away and quietly said, "Get out," in the most toneless voice he could manage.  
  
There was a long, long moment of silence, and Ron didn't dare look up to see what Hermione's reaction was. He didn't have to, though, because a few minutes later, he heard her start crying all over again. He didn't want to look at her; he didn't want to care.  
  
But he had to.  
  
"Hermione..." he turned his head slowly and saw that she had both hands to her face and was rocking back and forth very slowly as her tears came in quiet, long intervals. He just stared at her as she cried, not knowing what to do and not knowing how to do anything at all. So, he just watched until she lowered her shaking hands and looked at him with a terrified expression etched across her face.  
  
"Everything's falling apart..."  
  
Ron didn't want this. He didn't want to feel anything, but Hermione had always had a way of making this desire a vain one. The only problem was that he didn't know what to feel. He supposed that he should feel upset, saddened, devastated by everything that had happened.. But he didn't.  
  
He was angrier than he'd ever been in his entire life.  
  
He was angry at Voldemort for simply existing. He was angry at the Death Eaters who had found out Harry's hiding place and attacked. He was angry at Sirius for not protecting Harry.  
  
But most of all, he was angry at Harry for going and doing the one thing they'd all always sworn never to do.  
  
For leaving.  
  
"God damn it!"  
  
Ron had never felt so horrible, and he'd never yelled as loudly as he did at that moment. Hermione jumped at his outburst, and he fully-expected his mother and father to run up the stairs and burst into the room. But he didn't care about any of that. He was far too angry to care about anything at all.  
  
He wanted to hit something. To kick something. To hurt something.  
  
He grabbed the first thing he saw, which happened to be an old Muggle lamp that had sat in his room since his dad had brought it home to him on his ninth birthday. Without thinking twice, he hurled the lamp as hard as he could straight across the room, releasing a good amount of the fury he could feel building up. It shattered instantly upon impact, and glass went shattering all over the floor, mere feet from where Hermione was still standing. No longer crying, she looked at the broken glass and then turned her now frightened gaze back to Ron.  
  
"Ron..."  
  
He didn't allow her to finish. If she wanted to see feelings, then he'd give her everything she wished for.  
  
"This is such shit!" he yelled without waiting for her approval. "I hate him for this!"  
  
Hermione now looked as if she didn't know whether to burst into tears or to run away in fear.  
  
"I hope he fucking burns in hell for doing this!"  
  
"Ron! You don't mean that!" Hermione now looked sickened by his statement, but he didn't care anymore about that than he cared about anything else.  
  
"No!" he shouted just as loudly. "It's the truth- I do mean it! I hate him! Best friends aren't supposed to lie like that!"  
  
A loud pounding at the door momentarily interrupted the outburst. "Ron!" It was his mother's voice. "What's going on?!"  
  
"Go away!" he shouted at the wood that divided them from the hallway. "I told you to leave me alone!"  
  
"Ron, open the door." His father's voice now joined the other, and it was an unquestioning tone of authority.  
  
But who cared anymore.  
  
Ron turned angrily to Hermione and yelled at her. "Tell them to get the fuck away!"  
  
Hermione stared at him nervously for a moment before turning to the door and speaking in a shaky tone. "We're fine..."  
  
"Hermione?" Mrs. Weasley knocked again. "Honey, open the door."  
  
Hermione slowly glanced at Ron, who was glaring at her, as if daring her to open the door. However, she was smart enough to know that if she didn't do as the adults said, they would simply let themselves in. Taking a nervous breath, she carefully unlocked the door and opened it a crack. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were both looking rather anxious as they tried to see into the room.  
  
"We're fine," she repeated quietly, not opening the door all the way.  
  
"What was that crash?" Arthur Weasley strained his neck to try and get a better view into his youngest son's bedroom, but Hermione moved so that it was harder for him to see.  
  
"It was nothing," she answered timidly. "We're okay, really..."  
  
"But..." Mr. Weasley's protest was cut short by Ron, who had now stepped behind Hermione and was glaring at his parents.  
  
"It's none of your fucking business what it was!" he said venomously. "Just go away!"  
  
Molly and Arthur both looked quite shocked, and Hermione flinched as he said the words. Tears started to glisten in the corners of his mother's eyes, and Hermione looked down at the ground.  
  
"Please, let us in," pleaded Mrs. Weasley pitifully. "We only want to help you." She sounded desperate, and Hermione wanted nothing more than to open the door and grant their request. However, Ron had other plans.  
  
"I don't want your damn help! I just want you to go away and stop bothering me!" He continued to glare at them as he kept yelling. "Didn't you fucking hear her?! She said we're fine, now get out!"  
  
Hermione knew that this was only making things harder on everyone, so she swallowed nervously and looked back up at the Weasleys. "We're okay. Really."  
  
"But..." It looked as if it were literally tearing Molly Weasley's heart out to watch her youngest son in such a state.  
  
Hermione, though, simply looked at the other woman meaningfully and shook her head, muttering a very quiet, "Please?"  
  
Mr. Weasley looked once more into the room before sighing softly and gently leading his wife away from the door and back to the stairs. Hermione watched until they were out of sight before carefully shutting the door and turning around. Ron was now much closer to her than he had been before, and his glare was just as dangerous.  
  
"Why did you open the door?"  
  
Hermione looked away. "Ron..."  
  
"I know my fucking name, Hermione," he shot back fiercely.  
  
She bit down on her lower lip and looked back up, silently awaiting whatever he was going to say next.  
  
When she gave no reply, he narrowed his eyes and said, "Why aren't you mad? Don't you realize he outright lied to us?"  
  
"He couldn't help it," she said quietly.  
  
"He bloody well could have!" Ron was getting angrier by the second, and he was dead-set on conveying this. "He obviously didn't give a damn about your or me or anything else! He never would have done this if he did!"  
  
Without thinking, he raised his fist and prepared to punch a hole straight through the wall. "I hate him!" Hermione caught his hand out of instinct right before it crashed into the wall and took his brief bout of shock as an opportunity to grip his shoulders tightly and steady him against the wall.  
  
He was a lot bigger than her, as they were both seventeen and quite fully grown. He probably outweighed her by sixty pounds and was a good eight inches taller than her, so he could have easily shrugged her off. But he didn't. He let her hold him to the wall as he tried desperately to follow her instructions as she told him to calm down and breathe.  
  
It was no use.  
  
"I can't calm down!" he finally shouted. "I just... I just..." He broke off in a frustrated huff.  
  
"It's okay," she promised quietly. "Ron, you can tell me, I swear..." She was trying through much difficulty to convey with him through open and honest eyes that she was telling the truth.  
  
But he didn't want her honesty. He didn't want anything from anyone because nothing mattered anymore. In a voice that surprised him, he looked at the floor and muttered, "Why would he do this?" as both his voice and his body started to shake .  
  
Hermione was undoubtedly terrified, seeing him in this state, but she didn't let on. Quietly, she tried to soothe him again. "Just let it out," she whispered to the top of his head, which was tipped toward her. "Just let it out."  
  
"I..." Ron broke off and looked somewhere past her shoulder. "I don't hate him... I didn't mean that..."  
  
Hermione's heart was breaking in two, but she knew that Ron needed her now more than she needed herself. Allowing one hand to leave his shoulder, she slowly raised it to his forehead and pushed some of his bangs out of his face, letting her hand linger there as she spoke in her same soft tone. "I know you didn't. It's okay."  
  
But Ron shook his head slowly. "It's not okay... Nothing's okay..." He finally looked back and met her eyes. "Nothing will ever be okay again..."  
  
Hermione didn't say anything; she simply moved her hand ever-so-slightly and let the pad of her thumb slide slowly across his cheekbone. She watched as Ron's eyes closed and he muttered a few things she could barely make out.  
  
"This can't... It's not... Oh, God... Why?"  
  
She could tell that his knees were giving way, and she followed him to the floor as he slid slowly and shaking down the wall. She never let go of his shoulder, nor did she remove her palm from his face until she was seated on her knees in front of him as he leaned back against the wall with his eyes still closed. Carefully, she placed her hands on either side of his neck and whispered to him.  
  
"You can cry with me. It's okay."  
  
Ron's eyes opened slowly as he looked at her, now on eye level as they were both seated on the floor. In a voice quiet to match her own, he barely shook his head and said, "I don't want to cry."  
  
She bit down on her lower lip and nodded slightly, whispering, "But you can. It's okay."  
  
"Why did he do this?" Ron's question was barely audible, it was so weak and broken.  
  
She shook her head and mumbled, "I don't know." It was ironic that one of the only things she couldn't claim to know was the one thing that really mattered.  
  
"I want this to be a nightmare," he muttered, never breaking eye-contact with her. "I just want to wake up."  
  
"Me, too..."  
  
There was silence until Ron tried to speak again. His voice was so quiet, as if he didn't trust himself to speak. "He was..." His face twisted up before he managed to get the rest out. "He's my best friend..."  
  
His voice broke on the last word, and before either of them could comprehend what was about to happen, his head dropped and he started convulsing in thick, shaking sobs. He was crying in a way that he couldn't ever remember crying before, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he should have been embarrassed. He wouldn't even cry like this in front of his mother, and he was doing it in front of Hermione.  
  
Hermione.  
  
Who had never seen him do anything that he hadn't wanted her to see. He'd been careful never to show too much of any sort of emotion around her. Careful never to let on just how much she really could make him feel. Because feeling things was a sign of weakness; if he ever allowed himself to give in to any of the things that he felt around her, he would be all the worse for it.  
  
Because no one could play with his emotions better than the girl now sitting right in front of him with her hands still resting against the sides of his neck..  
  
And he didn't want to cry in front of her.  
  
He didn't want to cry at all.  
  
But he couldn't help it.  
  
She was there, and that was all that mattered. The mere presence of her palms pressing so carefully against the skin of his neck, the mere presence of her words whispered soothingly, the mere presence of her just somehow made it okay.  
  
And he cried. Without really meaning to, he let his head drop forward onto her shoulder. Vaguely, he could feel her hands running mindlessly through the hair at the nape of his neck as she muttered quiet things that really said nothing but somehow meant everything.  
  
Neither of them had any idea of how long they sat like that, with him crying into her shoulder and her simply being there as a brace for him. It could have been hours, or it could have been minutes. Time seemed to have stopped.  
  
When Ron had finally cried all of the tears he had, he let his head rest against her shoulder soundlessly for another moment before turning his head just slightly and whispering as closely to her ear as possible.  
  
"I'm sorry I hurt you earlier... In Dumbledore's office."  
  
She was confused for a moment before she finally remembered what he was talking about. She shook her head just barely and muttered, "It's fine."  
  
"I'd never hurt you," he whispered, his voice deep and thick, and it was doing all sorts of things that she didn't want it to do. "I've never meant to hurt you... Ever. I'm sorry if I have."  
  
Hermione didn't trust herself, and for that reason, she pulled back slightly from him. She wanted to take her hands away from him and get up, but the look in his eyes made it impossible to do anything. Instead of being flushed from the sobs, his skin was ghostly pale, and his eyes were so completely open and honest, as if he were a child- the eyes of childhood innocence.  
  
Except they weren't children.  
  
"Ron..."  
  
"I would never intentionally do anything bad to you, Hermione..." His eyes didn't betray his earnest words. "Just know that, okay?"  
  
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say because nothing seemed enough. And so, not knowing what else to do, she did the one thing that made sense.  
  
She kissed him.  
  
With her hands on his chin, she brought her face to his and softly pressed her lips to his. And she kissed him. She heard a barely audible sigh come from him before she let her eyes close and felt him kiss her back. His hands went to the back of her hair and tangled in the curls there. All other thoughts drifted from her mind as years of pent up desire and mixed emotions came through in their kiss.  
  
Nothing had ever been so incredibly right in her entire life.  
  
But then she remembered where they were and what had happened and she wondered why in the world she was kissing Ron at a time not hours after they'd just been told that Harry was dead.  
  
Dead.  
  
Harry was dead.  
  
Using every ounce of will-power she could find, she pulled back from the kiss. Ron's eyes, which had been closed just as hers had been, opened, and he looked at her. He looked just as confused and befuddled by their actions as she felt, and for a long, long moment, they simply regarded each other and spoke no words.  
  
Finally, Ron managed to say the only thing that made any sense to him at the moment. "Hermione..."  
  
The sound of her name from his lips jerked her back to reality, and she managed to shake her head nervously before standing up and backing toward the door, mumbling apologies. "I... I'm sorry... I have to go."  
  
And she did go.  
  
She walked out of his bedroom, and as he watched the door shut behind her, he mumbled one more thing.  
  
"I would never hurt you, Hermione."  
  
**************************************** Well? Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long. This one was a whopper to write, but I happen to love angst, so... Anyway, please leave feedback! It's the only way I'll know if anyone's still interested in this story and wants to read more. 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I love that you guys enjoy this and want to read more. Thanks!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters depicted in this story. They all belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastics, Bloomsbury, AOL Time Warner, and anyone else who has claim on them. Not me!  
  
**********************************  
  
Hermione had only been to one other funeral in her entire life; she'd been six years old when her great-uncle Marty had died, and she'd gone to the funeral with no real grasp of what was going on. She certainly hadn't fully understood death.  
  
Eleven years later, she wasn't sure that she did now.  
  
Her best friend was dead. There was no other way to state it any simpler; Harry Potter was dead. It was something that had always been a threat but that she'd never really let herself think about. If the thought of death had passed her mind at during the seven years since she'd known Harry, it had been in the context of a huge, heroic battle where she and Ron had been right by his side.  
  
But that's not at all how it happened.  
  
They'd found out the details because Ron had demanded them from his father when he'd come downstairs the morning before the funeral. Apparently, everyone thought it would be better if they weren't subjected to the way it had happened, but Ron had flat out stated that that was "bullshit" and quite forcefully demanded to know what had happened.  
  
Harry hadn't been involved in any such heroic battle that resulted in his death. He'd been asleep. Yes, that's right- asleep. A group of six Death Eaters had broken into the old house that Sirius and Harry were staying at and found Harry asleep in his bed. Without making a sound, they'd stood around and all six of them had sent "Avada Kedavra" on him at the same time.  
  
He'd died instantly.  
  
Maybe it was better that way; he certainly hadn't had a chance to feel any pain, so maybe it was better. But, on the other hand, he was Harry Potter; he deserved some sort of huge battle.  
  
But, instead, the Boy-Who-Lived had been reduced to the Boy-Who-Died-In-His- Sleep.  
  
Hermione was so utterly disgusted. The Death Eaters that had killed her best friend were probably being revered as some sort of great heroes by the rest of the Dark Side. Dark wizards and witches all over the world were probably toasting their names at that very moment. And what had they done? They'd killed a seventeen year old boy while he was asleep in his bed.  
  
Ruddy cowards.  
  
The funeral had been the weirdest experience of her life. It had been at Hogwarts because, apparently, the Dursleys had no real interest in anything having to do with their nephew- especially now that he was dead. Classes had been cancelled, and, as a result, a good majority of the student body had attended; there were some who chose to spend the time elsewhere, of course- Draco Malfoy and his lot, of course, but no one missed them. Hermione had sat tucked in between Ginny and Mr. Weasley and had tried very hard not to notice the way Mrs. Weasley seemed to be losing it all together in her seat on the other side of Ron's father. Ron himself had sat at the end of their aisle, a little ways off from the rest of his family. Of course, no one had expected any difference. It was almost symbolic of the way he'd been acting since the moment they'd heard the news on Harry's death- he was sullen and cut off from everyone else.  
  
Neither she nor Ron had discussed the moment shared in his bedroom the first night they'd come back from Hogwarts. In fact, they'd done a pretty good job of steering clear of each other all together; when one entered the room, the other always had an excuse to leave. Of course, Ron didn't spend too much time outside of his bedroom at all, so avoiding each other wasn't very difficult. It was so weird, though; things were completely different between them. They needed each other more than they ever had, and they should have been relying upon each other for support.  
  
Instead, they weren't even speaking.  
  
Hermione was surprised at herself. She hadn't shed a single tear during the entire funeral. Perhaps, she was all cried out, or maybe she didn't actually register with her mind that this was the last time she would ever see Harry.  
  
Or his body at least.  
  
She'd looked at him there in his coffin, and, of all the emotions she could have felt, she had been a bit frightened. Why she was scared of her best friend, she had no idea. But she had been. He'd just looked so incredibly normal that it was creepy. His eyes were closed behind the glasses that were as much a part of him as the still present scar on his forehead. He didn't look any different than he had on the several occasions she'd caught him napping in Professor Binns class.  
  
He'd been killed in his sleep.  
  
And he still looked as if he were dreaming.  
  
After looking at him for a few moments, she'd had to turn away and return to her seat. She didn't want to see him like that- not looking so peaceful and normal, as if he would wake up at any moment and ask if he could copy the notes he'd missed. It just didn't seem real. If he was supposed to be dead, he shouldn't look like he was asleep.  
  
It was terrifying.  
  
Ron hadn't even gotten up when everyone else had to take their turns paying their last respects to the body. Hermione wasn't sure that he'd even looked at Harry's body at all. He'd simply sat on the bench with his arms crossed over his chest and a very, very distant look on his face. It was almost as if he wasn't there at all.  
  
Ironically, Hermione, who had a knack for remembering every single detail of every class lecture ever given to their class for the past seven years, couldn't remember one single thing that had been said at the funeral. She couldn't even remember who all had spoken. Professor Dumbledore, of course, but he was the only one she could recall. And she had no idea what he had said.  
  
It somehow didn't matter.  
  
Nothing that anyone said was going to make her memories of Harry any different. No one else, besides she and Ron, could possibly know him well enough to say anything worth hearing. And she wasn't talking. Ron wasn't, either.  
  
People expected them, too, though. For some reason, everyone had simply jumped to the conclusion that they would have beautiful and elegant eulogies for their best friend. Everyone had seemed surprised when neither of them had stepped forward to speak.  
  
But they weren't even speaking to each other; they certainly weren't going to spill their emotions to a crowd full of people- especially a crowd full of people who only knew the "Famous Harry Potter" part of their best friend. Most of the people filling the Great Hall didn't even know that Harry's favorite meal was pork with roasted potatoes or that the subject which gave him the most trouble was Charms. They didn't know the real him.  
  
No one did.  
  
Not the row of third year Hufflepuffs sitting in the back of the room. Not the group of reporters that lined the left side of the hall. Not the five or six ghosts, which floated quietly toward the back of the Great Hall. Not Professor McGonagall. Not Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Not the headmaster. Not Hagrid.  
  
No one- except for herself and Ron.  
  
And they weren't going to give anyone else the privilege of knowing the real him, either.  
  
After the funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had taken them back to the Burrow for one last night. Ron had gone straight up to his room and hadn't been heard from since. Hermione had done her best to avoid Ginny's room, as Ginny had spent a good deal of time lying in her bed crying. So, knowing that the way they were acting wasn't helping anyone, Hermione had once again climbed the stairs to the top floor of the house and knocked on Ron's door. No answer came her way, so she tried again.  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
Well, at least it wasn't the usual, "Go away," that Ron had become so known for giving over the last few days. Suddenly a bit apprehensive, she managed to get her name out. "Hermione."  
  
Another moment of silence gave her the response she expected. Just as she was about to turn away, though, the door opened, and Ron peered out at her. He didn't say anything, and she shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other. "Can I come in?"  
  
Ron, still not speaking, pulled the door open a bit and stepped aside while she walked in. She looked around his room as she heard him click the door back into place and turn around to go back to his previous task at hand.  
  
Looking from the pile of clothes on his bed back to him, she wrinkled up her forehead a bit curiously and said, "What are you doing?"  
  
Ron didn't even look up from the shirts that he was removing from his drawers. "Packing."  
  
Hermione was quite confused. "Ron, you don't need all this stuff at Hogwarts. You've already got all the clothes you need there."  
  
"I'm not going back to Hogwarts." He still didn't look up as he dropped this statement as casually as if he'd just informed her that it was raining outside.  
  
"What?" Hermione was definitely bewildered now. She crossed the room to stand beside him until he finally got sick of her staring and looked up. "What do you mean you're not going back to Hogwarts?"  
  
Ron rolled his eyes slightly but didn't look away. "I mean I'm not going back. How difficult of a concept is that to grasp?"  
  
She ignored the sarcasm. "Well, where are you going?"  
  
"I'm leaving."  
  
"Leaving where?" she demanded, her voice rising just a bit.  
  
Ron sighed and looked at her rather contemptuously. "I don't know," he said haughtily as he stood up and started placing the clothes into an open suitcase in a rather unorganized fashion. "Just not here. And not Hogwarts."  
  
"I don't understand." Her eyes were now very alight, and she was trying desperately not to lose her cool.  
  
"How can you be so smart and have no common sense?" he asked her in a rather hurtful tone. He rolled his eyes again and spoke to her as he continued his packing. "I. Am. Leaving. I. Am. Not. Going. Back. To. School. Do. You. Understand?"  
  
Hermione glared at him but surprisingly wasted no time on bickering with him over his childish behavior. "Why are you leaving?"  
  
Ron apparently gave up on the packing momentarily because he sighed loudly and turned around to face her. "Hermione, Harry is dead."  
  
The words hit her like a slap in the face. He'd said them so forcefully without any sort of hesitation that it just made the whole sentence sound even worse than it would have normally. Looking back at him with yet another confused and upset expression, she mumbled, "I know that."  
  
Ron looked satisfied that they at least were on the same page about something. However, he was sure that she didn't fully understand or she would have said something else. "Do you know what that means?"  
  
Hermione just looked at him.  
  
"It means they've won!" he said exasperatedly. "Harry's dead, so they've officially won. They've gotten the main thing they wanted, and now they won't hesitate to take everything else they desire." He stopped for a moment and studied her. "And, Hermione, that probably means us."  
  
It was clear that the words finally settled in and made sense by the way her face darkened slightly. However, she shook her head and glared at him. "So, you're just going to run off and leave because you're afraid they're going to come after you?" She looked quite disgusted. "That is the most cowardly thing I have ever heard."  
  
Ron glared right back at her and looked as if he wanted to say something really horrible. He opted to go with, "That's not why I'm leaving. Hermione, why don't you open that huge brain of yours and think for a damn minute?"  
  
She just continued to look at him with narrowed eyes, still not catching onto his hidden meanings.  
  
He rolled his eyes at her stupidity and continued. "They'll be after us next. And not just us but everyone we know and care about." He said the next words with a rather biting tone. "And I don't know about you, but I'm not going to sit around and let my friends and family get killed just because some idiot Death Eaters are looking for me. One death is enough, thank you."  
  
Hermione blanched at the words. Everything finally set in, and she had the strongest urge to suddenly start sobbing. Everything he'd just said was true; it all made perfect sense, and she couldn't believe that she'd been too stupid to see it at first. Not knowing what else to say, she just muttered a quiet, "Oh, God..."  
  
Ron studied her for a moment before shaking his head slightly and turning back to his packing. "That's why I'm leaving."  
  
Hermione looked up and, without thinking, grabbed the shirt he was about to fold away from him. "But you can't just run away!"  
  
Ron stopped and looked up at her when she took the shirt from him. Carefully, as though he were addressing a child, he said, "I can. And I am."  
  
"No, you can't!"  
  
He just stared at her dumbly. "Are you going to hold me down and stop me? Because, Hermione, sweetie, I don't think that's going to work..."  
  
Hermione still felt like she was about to burst into tears at any given moment, and she struggled desperately to control them. "You just can't leave, Ron! You just can't!"  
  
"And why not, Hermione?" he demanded, suddenly not sarcastic at all. "Because you think it's the cowardly thing to do? Well, I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way." He reached forward and yanked the shirt away from her.  
  
She was desperate. Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed his shoulders and forced him to look her in the eye. "You can't leave ME!"  
  
Ron didn't say a word; he was obviously shocked both by her sudden hands on contact and by her words. He just looked at her with timid eyes.  
  
Hermione wasted no time in telling him everything. She wasn't about to let him run off and leave her all alone, and if she had to tell him all the reasons why, she was prepared to. "Ron, I need you. I need you more than I need anything. Please don't do this... Just don't leave me." Her voice started to crack on her final word. "Please?"  
  
Ron's blue eyes softened a bit, and they both stood perfectly still and silent as they looked at each other. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of Hermione pleading with her eyes and Ron searching with his, he slowly raised a hand across his chest to rest on the hand of hers that was gripping his opposite shoulder. Looking straight into her eyes, he quietly said, "Then come with me."  
  
Hermione felt his fingers curl under her hand and tried desperately not to let the feeling get to her. She never fully trusted herself around Ron, but this was a time when logical thinking was a definite must-have. Struggling to think properly, she registered what he'd just said.  
  
"Come with me..."  
  
He'd just said it again. And she had no idea what to say back. How could he ask her to do that? There was another answer; she was sure of it.  
  
But she couldn't think of it...  
  
Swallowing once to gather her voice, she managed to say, "I... I can't."  
  
His eyes fell immediately. She couldn't quite tell if he was angry or saddened by her reply; she couldn't quite decide which one she wanted him to be, either.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "But... I can't do that."  
  
Realizing that she was still touching him, she moved to take her hands away from his shoulders. Just as she took a step back, though, Ron caught the hand he'd recently been caressing and pulled her back to him. So close, in fact, that she was pressed right up against him. Frightened both by the fact that she had no self-control at all around him and by the way he was staring at her so intently, she immediately moved to get away. But he held her in place by gripping the one hand and using his free hand to hold her chin in the upright position so that she had no choice but to look at him.  
  
Without hiding his emotion at all, he spoke to her in a whispery sort of voice that was enough to send her into shivers.  
  
"Hermione, I need you, too."  
  
She hated him for knowing how to get to her so deeply. She hated him for being the only person in the world who could make her think so illogically. But she was Hermione Granger- logic overrode everything else in her mind.  
  
Dimly aware that she actually was trembling slightly, she tried to keep a straight mind. "But... We have to go to school. We have to... take the N.E.W.T.s. And... We have to graduate."  
  
Ron closed his eyes for the briefest of moments before letting go of the hand he had a hold on and moving it to the side of her neck. His fingers were long enough so that his index could trace a slow and agonizing line up and down the back of her neck.  
  
In a voice just as quiet as the last one he'd used, he tried once again at convincing her. "I already told you that they've won, Hermione. Once they get to full power, it's not going to make a damned difference how many N.E.W.T.s we got or even if we graduated at all. It won't matter."  
  
He was right, of course. She always hated it when he was right- especially about important things. And she hated the way he was making her feel like her brain couldn't function properly. If he'd just quit touching her and if he'd just quit talking in that voice, then maybe she could think rationally. As it was, though, all she could concentrate on was the way his finger was moving so meaningfully up and down the center line of the back of her neck. And she couldn't think of anything to say.  
  
Ron looked at her deeply, as if he could see straight to her soul. "We don't have to pretend anymore," he told her thickly. "There's no use in it." Little by little, she could feel each functioning part of her brain shutting down. He leaned closer to her and whispered into her ear, successfully breaking off any and all coherent thinking she had a shot at the second his hot breath hit her ear. "You know that we need each other. I need you. You need me. We need each other... In every way."  
  
Her eyes fluttered shut, and she hated herself for feeling this way when the situation was so serious. Their best friend was dead, and all she could think of was how she was sure to die from the torture Ron was inflicting upon her. They'd been denying these feelings for so long that it was almost second-nature. It was just the normal thing to do.  
  
But nothing was normal anymore.  
  
Gently brushing his palm up and down her cheek, he whispered his plea one more time. "Just come with me."  
  
And Hermione, not knowing what else to do, mumbled the only coherent statement she could make out.  
  
"Okay."  
  
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Well, there you have the third chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it.  
  
Feedback and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated. Thanks! 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. Your comments mean a lot to me!  
  
Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me.  
  
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Late that night, Hermione found herself standing at the counter of an extremely cheap motel in downtown London. She and Ron had waited until his parents had gone to bed before sneaking into her own house via Floo Powder and packing up some of her clothes. Her parents were such heavy sleepers that they hadn't even noticed the visitors. From there, they'd taken the midnight train to London, and now, at half past two in the morning, they were waiting for someone to notice their presence.  
  
"Should we ring this?" Ron asked, not waiting for an opinion before dinging the service bell.  
  
A few moments later, a tired elderly woman appeared. She looked quite cross at having been disturbed, and she looked at the pair of teenagers suspiciously.  
  
"Yes?" Her Cockney accent was evident from the first syllable.  
  
Hermione was suddenly quite nervous. "Uh, we'd like a room... Please."  
  
The old woman studied them with a hard gaze. "How old are you?"  
  
Hermione froze. They wouldn't rent to them unless they were...  
  
"Eighteen," Ron answered immediately. It was a lie, of course. He was two months shy of being eighteen, and Hermione's birthday was still eight months a way.  
  
The lie seemed to satisfy the woman, though, because she shrugged and opened a large book in front of her. "Do you have a credit card?"  
  
"No, ma'am," Hermione stuttered. "But we have cash. Is that okay?"  
  
The desk worker shrugged again. "Whatever. Do you want a single or a double?"  
  
Hermione glanced at the price list and saw the difference in the pricing. Knowing that they would need to stretch the little money that they had as far as it would go, Hermione looked blushingly at Ron before turning back to the desk and mumbling, "Single."  
  
The old lady looked at them disapprovingly and in a rather condescending tone said, "Do you at least have luggage?"  
  
Hermione felt her face flush on instant. But what was the woman supposed to think? They'd shown up at a low-budget motel in the middle of the night and were paying in cash.  
  
Ron, surprisingly, did not turn red. Instead, he glared briefly at the woman. "Yes, as a matter of fact, we do," he said hatefully. "And you can wipe that look off of your face, too. We're married." He grabbed Hermione's hand as if to prove the point.  
  
Hermione, who didn't know what else to do, tried very hard to not look too shocked by the story. In fact, she was actually rather impressed with Ron's ability to lie so straight-faced, though she wasn't quite sure that she should be.  
  
The woman behind the counter studied them for another moment before pursing her lips and giving them a price. Hermione dug into her bag for the Muggle money they'd nicked from her mum's purse on their brief visit to her house earlier. They'd have to wait until tomorrow to cash into the savings account that rested in the bank with her name on it. And that would be all the money they'd have to live on until they could find jobs. The few galleons, sickles, and knuts they could pool between them would do them no good, as neither of them planned on stepping foot into Diagon Alley any time soon. Once she'd counted out the right amount of money, Hermione graciously took the key and prodded Ron in the direction of the room.  
  
It was a horrid little room. The color scheme screamed the fact that it hadn't been redecorated since the mid-sixties, and the coverlet on the bed was tattered and faded. The stench in the air was a mixture of mold and the soured smell of vomit. Hermione didn't even want to think about the things that had gone in that room.  
  
Ron, too, looked quite disgusted. "Talk about a shithold," he muttered ruefully as he tossed his bag onto the floor and glanced around. "Don't reckon we've got too much of a choice, though, do we?"  
  
Hermione shook her head and timidly set her own bag down. "This is all we can afford."  
  
Nodding absently, Ron started stripping. Without hesitation and with seemingly no regard for the girl across the room, he pulled his jumper over his head and started unbuckling the belt of his trousers.  
  
Hermione, after staring at him in shock for several moments, finally managed to verbalize a question. "What are you doing?!"  
  
Ron looked up and didn't even attempt to hide his amusement. He grinned for the first time in days as he finished with the belt and started undoing the button and zipper. "Getting ready for bed," he answered simply. "Don't forget where I grew up, Hermione. Nine people and one bathroom doesn't leave much room for modesty." He pushed the trousers down his legs and kicked them off, leaving himself clad in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.  
  
Hermione immediately began to regret her decision. If she could barely stand to look at Ron in a pair of boxers, then how in the world was she expected to live with him? There was no way in hell she could share a bed with him.  
  
"You should get ready for bed, too," Ron said, breaking her out of her brief reverie. "We've got to get up early."  
  
Hermione nodded vaguely and grabbed her bag, heading for the loo before she could stare at him and make a fool of herself any longer. Once she shut herself into the tiny bathroom, Hermione chanced a glance in the mirror.  
  
She looked horrible.  
  
Her eyes were red and puffy from the crying she'd done over the past few days. The bags under them gave away the fact that she hadn't slept at all since the day she'd been informed of Harry's death. Her cheeks were still flushed from seeing Ron in his underwear. Her hair had never looked more unruly with her curls frizzing and tangling all over the place.  
  
She looked as if she'd been through hell and back. The crazy thing was that she had been.  
  
She was somehow scared that this was only the beginning.  
  
For starters, she was spending the night in, as Ron had so eloquently put it, a "shithole" motel paid for with money she'd stolen from her mother. Her mother, whom she hadn't even bothered to inform that she was leaving- that she was running away.  
  
That's what she was- a teenage runaway.  
  
And she'd run away with the one person in the world she should never have considered. Ronald Weasley. Honestly, was her brain not working at all?  
  
Ron was quite possibly the most irrational person she'd ever met. He never, ever thought before he acted. He was rude, crude, and deliberately crass. Sometimes she felt more as if he were seven than seventeen.  
  
But she was kidding no one but herself if she tried to say that these were the only reasons she should definitely not have run away with Ron.  
  
There was so much... stuff... between them that thinking clearly was quite impossible. They'd fought and bickered since the day they'd met on their first train ride to Hogwarts, but there'd always been so much more there than just their arguments. Hermione wasn't sure when it had started, but she clearly remembered the first time she'd realized it. She'd only been eleven, Ron just barely twelve. The moment Harry had informed her that Ron was going to sacrifice himself on the giant chess board at the end of their first year, a horrible feeling of dread had settled over her ands he had fully realized for the first time that Ron was a whole lot more than "Harry's other best friend," which was what she'd resolved to referring to him as in her mind up until that point.  
  
And that was only the beginning.  
  
Second year had brought about the endless defenses he reserved just for her. The word Mudblood always insulted him more than it did her, but she never tired of watching him stand up for her. Third year had brought their only real fight, but it had also been the first time she'd ever broken down sobbing in his arms. Fourth year had been the real start of it all, with the jealousy and emotions hidden as anger. Fifth year had been one of the worst. Hormones had been raging, and a heated argument had been the cause of their first kiss. Neither of them had been prepared for it, though, and an unspoken agreement had left the kiss unmentioned and supposedly forgotten. But she had never forgotten it; even now, years later, she could still remember the way he'd grabbed her shoulders and pressed his mouth tightly against hers and the way she seemed to melt into him and kissed him back in a way she'd never thought of kissing Viktor Krum. Sixth year had been almost too hard; the awkwardness and tension between them was sometimes so hard to bear that she would purposely avoid the boys just so that she wouldn't have to try and ignore the scary little shocks that seemed to shoot through her whenever Ron was around. She wanted him and he wanted her, but there was too much going on with Voldemort and it had just never been the right time. Just a month after their seventh year had begun, Harry had been taken into hiding, and any and all romantic ideas had seemed completely inappropriate.  
  
They seemed a million times more inappropriate now.  
  
But that didn't change the fact that they'd shared their second kiss on the night that their best friend had been murdered. Or the fact that they had run away together on the night of that best friend's funeral.  
  
And now what was she supposed to do? GO back in there and sleep beside him? Was she supposed to pretend that she hadn't spent more nights than not in the past few years fantasizing about sharing a bed with him? How horrible could she possibly get?  
  
Harry was dead.  
  
Dead. As in buried somewhere six feet underground and never coming back. And all she could think about was the fact that Ron was in the next room wearing nothing but his underwear and that they only had one bed.  
  
Could she be more of an awful person?  
  
Deciding not to dwell on the subject any longer, she resolved to simply not think about it. She could be mature. She'd been denying these feelings for years now; she could certainly continue the little act. After all, what good would acting on these impulses do? They were both far too emotional and neither one of them was thinking clearly; there was no telling what all they might give into if they allowed anything to transpire.  
  
After pulling a comb through her hair, brushing her teeth, and changing into her nightgown, she took a deep breath and went back into the main room. Ron was sitting on the bed sorting through his bag. He looked up when she entered and grinned rather cheekily at her.  
  
"You could have changed out here, you know?" he said teasingly. "We're supposed to be married, aren't we? I think it's perfectly acceptable for us to see each other naked." At this he raised his eyebrows suggestively, and she felt a hot blush creep into her cheeks despite the fact that she knew he was joking.  
  
"Oh, shut up."  
  
Ron grinned again and shrugged. "Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you in your knickers before."  
  
"What?!" she demanded, instantly checking his fact to see if he was serious.  
  
But he simply nodded. "We never told you about that, did we?"  
  
"We?!"  
  
Ron laughed; she hadn't heard him laugh in awhile. "Yeah. Harry was there, too."  
  
Hermione could feel her cheeks about to burn off and she didn't even know the story yet. "Was where, too?" she demanded sternly.  
  
"In your dorm room. Fifth year." Hermione stared disbelievingly at him, so he went on, sniggering briefly at the memory. "Seamus said he would pay ten galleons if anyone could get a naked picture of Lavender for him. Of course, the invisibility cloak made it almost too simple of a task..."  
  
Hermione could hardly believe her ears. She sent him a disgusted look. "I don't even want to hear the rest."  
  
Ron, though, laughed even harder and went on anyway. "So, we borrowed Colin's camera and snuck up to the girls' dormitory, both thinking there was probably n o better way to make ten galleons. Of course, we didn't count on Lavender and Parvati already being asleep and you being the one changing for bed." A sly smile covered his lips, and Hemrione instantly went into a rage.  
  
"So, you just stood there and watched me change clothes?!"  
  
Ron studied her silently for a moment before cocking an eyebrow at her and saying, "Do you have any idea what goes on in a fifteen year old boy's mind? Of course we stood there and watched!" He snickered again, enjoying the humiliating look on her face and obviously wanting to embarrass her even further. "You can't even imagine how many nights that one image got me through."  
  
Hermione didn't know whether to be outraged, disgusted, or strangely flattered. She definitely knew which of the three she was not about to let show. Somehow, though, this joking- no matter how crass- gave her a sense of security and normalness.  
  
Shooting him a short glare, she rolled her eyes and said, "You're so disgusting."  
  
But Ron just smirked. "It wasn't disgusting at the time. That was the closest we'd ever been to a naked woman; it was actually quite impressive."  
  
"I can't believe... And Harry, too?!"  
  
Ron shrugged. "Just because Harry wasn't madly obsessed with you like I was doesn't mean he wasn't a normal fifteen year old male. You have no clue how bad the hormones are at that age."  
  
Well, girls had their own hormonal problems, too, but she didn't mention this to him. She was too caught up on the casual way he'd just admitted to being obsessed with her. It wasn't as if she didn't know, but he'd never been so blatant about it before.  
  
Suddenly hit with a previous part of the conversation, she looked up at him wide-eyed. "Did you take pictures?!"  
  
Ron laughed. "No, but I sure wished we did for a long time afterwards. But no, we were too shocked because, for one, we were expecting Lavender, not you and for two, we definitely weren't prepared for, well, you."  
  
She raised her eyebrows in question, though not entirely sure she wanted the explanation.  
  
He just looked at her for a moment before sighing softly. "Come on, Hermione. You know how loose the Hogwarts robes are; how were we supposed to know that you were hiding that," he motioned at her nightgown-clad body, "under that uniform?"  
  
Hermione had never wished so hard for a dressing gown as she stood feeling extremely exposed and self-conscious.  
  
"Don't be embarrassed," he told her, an infuriating smirk playing on his lips. "It was very nice." His eyes shot down and then back up her body. "It still is."  
  
Blushing a deep crimson, she avoided his eyes and walked to the opposite side of the bed from him and climbed under the cover. She rolled over to face the wall and mumbled a, "Goodnight," in lieu of a response to his 'compliment.'  
  
She felt the bed shift as Ron stood up, and she heard him remove the other pillow from the bed. "Are you going to need this?"  
  
She rolled back in the direction of his voice and saw him holding the extra quilt that had been folded at the foot of the bed.  
  
Instead of answering, she pushed herself into a half-sitting position, propped up with her elbows. "What are you doing?"  
  
Ron looked at her oddly for a moment. "Making a place to sleep." He dropped the pillow onto the floor beside him.  
  
"You're going to sleep on the floor?" She glanced over the side of the bed and then back at him.  
  
Once again, Ron sent her a look that said he was questioning her sanity. Raising a single eyebrow at her, he said, "You don't honestly think I'm stupid enough to attempt sleeping in the same bed with you, do you?" He gave her a very pointed look and said, "Trust me, Hermione, that is not a good idea."  
  
She didn't know what to say.  
  
"Do you need this?" he asked again, holding up the blanket. She shook her head. Ron nodded, turned away, and then looked back at her a moment later. In a rather nervous voice, he said, "Um... Could you pull your gown up a little?" He motioned toward his neck.  
  
Hermione glanced down and immediately saw what the problem was. Flushing furiously, she yanked the gown up and immediately rolled back over, burying her face into the pillow.  
  
"See?" Ron said as if to prove his point. "Definitely not a good idea..."  
  
She didn't say a word as she listened to Ron making a bed for himself. When she didn't hear him moving around anymore, she realized he must have settled in, and she realized that she didn't want him settling in on the floor. A moment later, the room went dark.  
  
"Ron?" she asked timidly into the darkness that now surrounded them.  
  
A delayed moment later, she heard him respond with a deep, "Yeah?"  
  
Suddenly hit with a rather unfounded sense of apprehension, Hermione considered mumbling that she hadn't needed anything. Other feelings took over, though, and she quietly said, "Don't sleep on the floor."  
  
There was another long moment of silence. Hermione didn't know how to interpret it. Finally, she got a reply.  
  
"Hermione, I already told you, it's not a good..."  
  
"Just please," she said firmly. Then, realizing that she must have sounded rather stupid, she tried to cover up her desperateness. "There's no telling what's crawling around on that floor."  
  
Ron sighed softly, and she heard him get up a moment later. The pillow was replaced on the bed, and she felt it shift again as Ron's weight came down on it. Even though her face was toward the wall, she could sense that he was lying as far to the other side of the bed as possible.  
  
Neither of them spoke for a long time until Ron finally broke the silence. "Are you awake?"  
  
Hermione opened her eyes and peered through the darkness at the patterned wallpaper. "Yes," she said softly.  
  
Another silence, and Hermione wondered if that was the extent of the question. Moments later, though, she felt the bed shift yet again. Ron had rolled over and was now lying right behind her. She could feel his breath hitting the space where her hair fanned out onto the pillow, and a rush of emotions shot through her.  
  
In a strangely strained voice, Ron barely managed to whisper. "Would you care if..."  
  
She shook her head slightly, cutting off his question.  
  
And then she felt Ron's arm snake lightly over her waist, and she timidly raised a hand to clasp it into his.  
  
Everything else seemed to matter just a bit less at that moment.  
  
A quiet pair of, "Goodnights" was exchanged before they both relaxed into the situation.  
  
And each of them slept for the first time since the day they'd left Hogwarts for what would be the final time.  
  
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Comments are widely appreciated! 


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I can't believe you guys actually like this! I was so worried when I started posting it, but I'm glad that I did. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has reviewed thus far.  
  
Disclaimer: All the characters belong to J.K. Rowling and a slew of other people.  
  
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The next morning came far too quickly, and as the room flooded with the light of dawn, Hermione's groggy thoughts went only as far as the fact that she did not want to wake up. Perhaps this was due to knowing that the brief four hours of slumber she'd just experienced had been the only sleep she'd gotten in the past five days.  
  
But she'd honestly never felt so content in her entire life.  
  
She knew on instant upon waking up that Ron's body was the soft and warm presence pressed behind her, and that it was Ron's hand in which hers rested, and that this was Ron's arm draped over her waist. They hadn't moved at all since they'd fallen asleep.  
  
Just as everything having to do with Ron felt completely right, waking up beside him seemed to make all of her pain just a little less hurtful. Waking up like this, she couldn't quite believe that she'd never done it before. He'd been just down the hall from her for seven years now, and they'd never been allowed to sleep in the same room, much less in the same bed. The closest they'd ever come before had been in third year when they and Harry had pulled three sleeping bags to the corner of the Great Hall after the Fat Lady had been attacked. It had been one of the rare occasions when she and Ron hadn't placed themselves on either side of Harry as unnamed personal defenders. Instead, the boys had tucked her between them, each feeling a need to protect her.  
  
Thinking back, she realized that she had never fully appreciated the warm feelings she'd always gotten whenever the three of them stood up for each other. It had always been like that- each one of them willing to do anything to defend the others, and no one could hurt them when they were together.  
  
As three, they were invincible.  
  
Split them up and none of them was safe.  
  
Harry was gone- dead. The trio that had once been the pentacle of her life was now a duo. For a long time, she'd been wishing for her name to be said beside Ron's in a context that wasn't "Harry, Ron, and Hermione." Now, her wish was seemingly granted. There would never be a "Harry, Ron, and Hermione" again.  
  
She felt sick.  
  
Behind her, she felt Ron pull her closer to him. He mumbled something inaudible, and she knew that he was still asleep as he buried his face into the back of her hair. This was how she'd always wanted to wake up.  
  
She'd just never wanted these circumstances.  
  
Deciding that it must be close to seven from the brightness of the room, she contemplated waking Ron. They had a lot to do after all, and they probably shouldn't wait too late to get started. But she knew Ron hadn't slept in days, either, and the thought of waking him just seemed cruel.  
  
Instead, her mind wandered aimlessly. She was supposed to go back to school today, and Mrs. Weasley was probably trudging up the stairs at that very moment to wake them all. Hermione imagined her knocking on the girls' door before walking the final two flights to her youngest son's room and knocking there. Ginny would probably wake up, see Hermione's empty bed, and panic. When Mrs. Weasley got no answer from Ron, she'd probably "alohomora" the door open and go into a frenzy at the sight of his empty bed. The two Weasley women would probably meet on the stairs and start speaking at the same time.  
  
"Hermione's not here!"  
  
"Ron's bed is empty!"  
  
"Do you know where they are?!"  
  
The guilt of knowing their reactions was almost too hard to bear. Thinking about the rest of the morning was no easier.  
  
After Ginny and her mother had finally put two and two together that the missing teenagers were more than likely together, all the big worries would start surfacing.  
  
Where had they disappeared to? Had they been kidnapped? Were they... No, neither Mrs. Weasley nor Ginny would ever verbally wonder if they'd been killed- saying those words out loud would be too much to handle. They would wonder, though.  
  
The entire household would be awaken immediately and a search party would commence, leaving no area of the house or the grounds untouched. When nothing surfaced, Mrs. Weasley would go into a fit and have to be held upright by any of the other members of her family.  
  
Mr. Weasley would not panic. He would be worried, of course, but he would never lose control in front of his family. Instead, he would leave his wife to his sons and Apparated to the only natural location.  
  
The Grangers' house.  
  
The guilt that Hermione felt at this image was overpowering. She could perfectly imagine the look on her parents' faces when Mr. Weasley popped unannounced into their kitchen as they ate their morning breakfast. Without waiting for any sort of greetings, Arthur Weasley would get straight to the matter at hand, for once in his life completely ignoring the refrigerator and microwave.  
  
"Ron and Hermione are missing."  
  
"Missing? What do you mean? Where have they gone?" That would be her father's reply as he eyed the other man warily.  
  
After the empty beds and no left explanation story was told, her father would speak again.  
  
"Well, what's happened to them?" There would be a slightly raised tone to his voice, not out of anger but out of desperation for that which he did not understand.  
  
Lost... Kidnapped... Voldemort... Harry's death... All of these things would come up as Ron's father went over the possibilities with her parents.  
  
Luckily, Dr. Marianne Granger was a logical woman. Panicked, of course, but not to the point where thinking logically was impossible, she would get up without a word and hurry up the stairs to her only child's bedroom.  
  
"They've run away," she would announce blankly as she stared into the closet, which was now bare of its previous clothing occupants. "They were here."  
  
The two men, who would have rushed after her, would stare just as blankly into the empty closet, and no one would speak.  
  
Minutes later, after searching for any sign of the teens, her mum would open her purse and shake her head in disbelief. "And all of my money is gone."  
  
And then everything would piece itself together. The Grangers would take the Floor Network to the Burrow, and everyone would realize that the missing children could be anywhere by that time.  
  
And then everyone would finally lose it.  
  
Hermione frowned at the thought of her parents worrying so desperately over her. Her stomach hurt when she thought of the way Mrs. Weasley probably wouldn't be able to handle it at all- losing Harry, who had always been like a son to her, and then finding out that her youngest son had run off to God knows where with a girl who also happened to be like a surrogate child.  
  
It would just be far too much to ask anyone to take.  
  
Hermione hated herself for putting their families through what was sure to be hell.  
  
She felt Ron stir behind her again. Knowing that he was waking up, Hermione was suddenly overcome with a rather unfounded feeling of nervousness. For some reason, she wasn't yet ready to face waking up beside him, so she quickly closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.  
  
Without looking, she could sense that Ron was staring at the back of her head, most likely wondering how in the world she ended up asleep in his arms. It was almost frightening how she was able to read his mind, but she knew him as well as she knew herself. Sometimes she wondered if she knew him better than she did herself. Almost immediately, she felt him relax, and she knew that he was remembering where they were and why they were in bed together.  
  
Still keeping her eyes closed in what she prayed was a natural way, she lay perfectly still while Ron carefully untwined his fingers from hers. For a second, she felt an undeniable flutter of loss float through her body; she wasn't quite sure she was ready to let go.  
  
However, as soon as the feeling of loss settled in, it drifted away. Ron had taken his hand away from hers, yes, but he had replaced it on the side of her neck. Carefully, so as not to wake her up, he let his fingertips slide slowly over the skin behind her ear, and she had to fight with every ounce of willpower that she possessed not to make any movement when she felt his lips brush gently over the area that her fingers had just been.  
  
It wasn't as if he was kissing her neck roughly in an attempt to leave a mark. It wasn't even as if he was leaving a trail of tiny and deliberate kisses from her neck to her jaw line. It was a single, small, breathless kiss that nearly sent Hermione into a fit of trembles.  
  
Not knowing what to do and really having no honest desire to do anything at all, she lay perfectly still and continued to pretend as if she were lost in slumber as he carefully pulled her toward him, rolling her onto her back. She wondered if she ought to 'wake up,' but decided against it when she sensed that he had propped himself up on one hand and was staring down at her. It was as if she could feel his stare to the very core of her, and she was floored by the way it was affecting her; she couldn't even see the way he was staring at her, and it was still almost too much to take. Not being able to fight the quiet sigh that escaped her lips when his fingers started tracing careful lines on her face, she gave herself over and simply allowed herself to feel all the emotions that were swarming her so prominently. Ron, obviously fueled by the tiny sigh she'd given in her 'sleep,' didn't stop but instead continued his slow exploration of her features. And when his fingers passed briefly over her lips, she couldn't stand it any longer.  
  
Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself staring into the same pair of eyes that she'd known so well for seven years now. He didn't appear embarrassed at being caught tracing the contours of her face; instead, he left his fingers where they were, pressed against her lips, and spoke quietly.  
  
"Do you know how pretty you are when you're asleep?"  
  
Hermione couldn't comprehend the thousands of sharp feelings that were shooting through her at a rate of a million miles a minute. Everything from all their years of close friendship to all the years they'd spent repressing their feelings for each other seemed to be threatening to surface, and she knew immediately that there was no way they would be able to keep pretending.  
  
They didn't need to pretend, though; Ron had told her as much the night before when he'd convinced her to run away with him. But what would it help if they did start getting all irrational? It wouldn't change the fact that they were seventeen, with no money, no jobs, no place to live, and no idea how to survive on their own.  
  
Those were the things they should be focusing on.  
  
Not the way it felt so incredibly natural to wake up beside each other.  
  
Keeping as clear of a head as she could manage, Hermione sat up. Simply going on as if she hadn't heard him, she changed the subject. "They probably know we're missing."  
  
Ron looked at her for a moment, his eyes a cool blue. Then he shrugged. "I don't care."  
  
"You should."  
  
"I don't." Ron looked at her defiantly, as if he were daring her to press the subject further.  
  
She didn't back down from a dare. "Do you realize what we've done?" she asked seriously.  
  
Ron sighed, and a frown covered his face; it was clear that he didn't want to discuss this with her, but if she wouldn't shut up about it, he'd give her all the answers she wanted. "Yeah," he answered coolly. "We've done what we should have done a long time ago. Only we should have done it sooner, and we should have taken Harry with us."  
  
"Ron..."  
  
He cut in. "Well, we should have. Maybe then he wouldn't be dead."  
  
The way he spoke about it, so straight-forwardly and coldly, made Hermione cringe. "Just stop," she said quietly.  
  
Ron sat up and stared at her silently for a long minute. "Why should I, Hermione? Do you think if we don't talk about it, he'll come back?" He gave her a piercing look. "He won't. He's dead."  
  
"I know he's dead," she said loudly, glaring at him. "I just don't see how you can act like you don't care."  
  
The look Ron gave her then actually frightened her. She'd never seen him look angrier in her entire life, and for a split second, she was scared of him. Several moments later, though, he broke the glare, stood up, crossed the room, and grabbed his clothes from the floor where he'd discarded them the night before. Without a word, he pulled them on haphazardly and grabbed his bag.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked timidly as he started toward the door.  
  
"Getting away from you," he shot back bitingly.  
  
Hermione didn't know what to do, so she carefully got out of the bed and spoke quietly. "Why?"  
  
Ron spun around on instant and glared at her. "Because I can't stand you right now, that's why," he said sharply. "Because you're too damn self- righteous, and I'm sick to death of you thinking you know everything there is to know. You obviously don't know half of what you think you do if you had the nerve to just say that I don't care that Harry's dead."  
  
His eyes were flashing in a way she was familiar with; it was the same way he'd looked during seven years of raging rows with her. But this was different, too. His eyes held something else- it looked a bit like hurt. Hermione felt awful.  
  
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I know that..."  
  
"There you go again!" he said, this time not caring that his voice was loud enough to carry through the door and into the hallway of the cheap motel. "There you go, thinking you know something that you don't!"  
  
"Ron..."  
  
"No!" he shouted, his face dancing with anger. "I'm not listening to you because you never listen to me! But that's about to change right now. I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen! For once in your life you're going to listen to what I have to say!"  
  
She didn't say a word.  
  
"Harry was my best friend! Do you understand that? He was the best fucking friend that I've ever had and will ever have, and now he's dead! He's gone, and there's nothing that's going to change that! And I'm not going to sit around and feel pity for myself because if there's one thing that I learned from Harry it's that pity doesn't accomplish anything. He never once felt sorry for himself, and look at what he went through. And I'm not going to feel guilty, either, because guilt isn't going to bring him back!" Ron's face was flushed in a way quite different from his usual blushing. "This is real shit now, Hermione! I'm going to do what I have to do to take care of me. And you should do the same. Because as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the world can fucking go to hell!"  
  
Even though he'd just warned her against it, a wall of guilt settled over Hermione, and she felt awful about what she'd said. She hadn't meant to say it.  
  
Not knowing what else to do, she decided to bare all her insecurities to him. "But I'm scared," she muttered quietly.  
  
Ron continued to send her sharp looks. "Being scared isn't going to do anything except make you weak." He wasn't using a soothing sort of voice; it was a voice that sounded nothing if not completely real. "If you're scared, then you should go home right now. Run back to your parents. Go back to Hogwarts. Pretend like nothing's changed."  
  
She felt like crying, but she couldn't. "Aren't you scared?"  
  
Ron looked away for a split second and then back at her. "I got over being scared the second I pulled myself out of denial."  
  
Hermione didn't know what to say.  
  
After a moment, Ron sighed and set his bag back down onto the floor. He crossed his arms over his chest and spoke to her in a much quieter tone. "You've been after me to grow up for seven years now, Hermione," he said pointedly. "Now, here's your chance to take your own advice. It's time to make a choice."  
  
"What choice?" she asked quietly, forcing her voice to work.  
  
"Either grow up and do this or go back home and continue to be a child."  
  
Hermione didn't speak for a very long moment; she simply stared at the man who stood in front of her where a boy had once been. She realized for the first time that he really had grown up. She'd missed it somewhere between the crying and the guilt, but it had happened. Over the course of a little under a week, Ron had grown up.  
  
It was time for her to do the same.  
  
Brushing some of the hair away from her face, she looked up and met his eyes directly. "I want to stay."  
  
There was no turning back now.  
  
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Well? I hope you liked it! I'd love to see your comments and suggestions. 


	6. Chapter 6

A/N:  I know it's been FOREVER, but hey!  Life happens!  Sorry!!!!!!!!  
  
Disclaimer:  I own nothing here except for the plot.

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Hermione pulled her coat tighter around her as she hurried down the city streets.  The streets weren't particularly nice to anyone, least of all a seventeen year old girl who came from an upper-middle class family and wasn't at all used to being on her own.  In the month since she'd run away from home, she'd grown rather accustomed to seeing the homeless people and criminals that made the streets their home, but it still unnerved her when someone would ask her for some spare money or, even worse, when someone offered her money for 'favors.'  Two weeks before, Ron had knocked a man out with one punch after the stranger had offered an _exchange _involving Hermione.  An argument had followed that night, though, because even though Hermione had been extremely thankful that Ron had been around, she was still outraged when he told her in no uncertain terms that she _wasn't _going anywhere after dark without him.  They'd screamed at each other for an hour until she finally realized how truly desperate he was to keep her safe.  And anyway, she agreed to humor him, as they both knew it would be an impossible condition to keep.  After all, her job didn't let out until far after dark, and his was so random that they never knew what time he'd be at home.

Their _jobs._

That had certainly been an interesting adventure.  Hermione had always imagined herself being wonderfully successful with a job that would bring in more than enough money for her survival.  Of course, she'd also counted on having a degree.  As it was, though, she had no sort of degree or diploma, neither Wizard nor Muggle, and finding a job was a lot harder than she'd expected.  She had to deal with working a fake identity for one; she and Ron had found that things were much easier 'being' eighteen and married than it was being seventeen and runaways, so they'd created fake IDs and then tucked their wands away with the full intent to leave them hidden.  They were now, respectively, Helen and Ray West.    
  
They were Muggles now, and they needed Muggle jobs.  Ron had gotten hired on rather quickly at a small diner; waiting tables was one of the few Muggle jobs that he knew anything about.  It had taken Hermione a bit longer, but she'd finally landed a job at a downtown used bookshop.  Books had always been her passion, and she was rather surprised to find that she honestly didn't mind working.  The only problem was the low pay that she was receiving.  Ron did okay in tips when he actually got to work, but the diner relied heavily on seniority, and, as the newest staff member, he was usually the last one asked to pick up a shift.  So, money was turning out to be a problem for them.

On their first day on their own, they'd gone to the Bank of London and emptied out the savings account that Hermione's parents had set up for her when she was a baby.  It was a fair sized amount of money, but they'd nearly exhausted it after putting the deposit down on the small flat they'd found.  Their new home was in the worst possible part of downtown, and it wasn't even a real flat.  It was the attic of an old house that had been split up and rented out by a mad old woman named Mrs. Winkler.  She was quite eccentric, but she'd given them a fairly good price on rent.  The 'flat' was small, but it was enough for the two of them; it was quite rundown, though, and the furniture inside of it looked to be as old as Mrs. Winkler.  Their neighbors weren't the friendliest of characters, either.  There was an elderly couple who didn't quite speak English living on the second floor, and two girls who Hermione strongly suspected were prostitutes and drug addicts rented the basement.  

Things had been difficult for them, but they'd finally gotten enough straightened out to maybe work on making it.  They had jobs, they had a place to live, they had food thanks to the leftovers Ron managed to filch from the diner, and they had each other.

And that was really the main thing.

Hermione had never fully realized just how close Ron and Harry had been.  She known, of course, that they were best mates, but she'd never imagined the complete and total loss they would suffer if separated.  

Harry was gone, and Ron was falling apart.

He tried to hide it, of course, but Hermione could see right through him.  She saw the pain that flooded his eyes in the place of the laughter that used to occupy them.  She'd heard him in fitful rages early in the morning when he thought she was still asleep, cursing the world and asking no one in particular for an explanation.    
  
Ron just wasn't happy anymore, and it was tearing Hermione apart to watch him suffering.

She cared for Ron more than she liked to acknowledge, and the pain that she felt over Harry's death was multiplied every time she looked at her other best friend.  She couldn't bear to watch him fight the emotions that needed releasing, and so she did the only thing she could to help him.  She comforted him.  Not in a pat on the shoulder and soothing word way, though.  She comforted him by lying beside him and allowing him to sleep peacefully instead of fitfully.  She comforted him by kissing his cheek occasionally and squeezing his hand from time to time.  She comforted him simply by being there.

His best friend was gone.  But he still had her.

And what was she?  She'd asked herself that question so many times over the past month.  She was his friend, yes.  They'd always been bonded by their mutual friendship with Harry, but, for some reason, they'd always been inhibited from becoming as close with each other as they were with him.  They'd tried of course; God knows they had enough opportunity to bond, what with Harry always running off to Quidditch practice or saving the world and what not.  But there had always been something holding them back from each other, and it wasn't the fact that they thrived off of fighting with each other.  

  
And, to be perfectly honest with herself, she knew exactly what that something was.  It was the very something that caused her to lie awake at night and imagine that she was lying in his arms for a reason other than the fact that they only had one bed.  It was the very something that caused her to shiver when she would catch him staring at her from across the room.  

It was the very something that she wanted desperately to explore.

She'd felt bad at first, as though she had no right to be thinking of those sorts of things when her best friend lay buried somewhere six feet under the ground.  The guilt she felt over Harry's death was unreasonable, and she knew that.  But it didn't stop her from feeling as if she was betraying his memory by thinking about things that really had nothing to do with him.

Because it had never been about Harry.

Not that anyway.

What was between Ron and herself had always been about something much deeper.  Something much more complicated.  Something much more personal.

Something she was now thriving off of and drawing her survival from.

_She wanted him.  _

She wanted him in a way that she'd never wanted anything in her life.  She knew him inside and out.  She knew the inner workings of his soul.  She knew the secret thoughts he hid deep inside his mind.  She knew all the pain and love that mixed and flooded his heart.  And now she wanted to know everything else.

The past month had been hell.  There was no other way of putting it any more lightly.  And there had been a whole lot more to it than Harry dying, she and Ron running away, and them trying to fend for themselves.

There was a whole other kind of hell.

  
She was thinking about the hell of lying beside him and doing absolutely nothing but sleeping.  She was referring to the hell that occurred when she tried to force herself into believing that not acting on her feelings was the best thing for everyone.    
  
It was the hell of wanting something and not being able to get it.

She walked up the drive that led to the house she was currently residing in and noticed that all the lights seemed to be off in her attic flat.  She wondered if maybe Ron had picked up an extra shift at the diner because she knew he hadn't been scheduled to work late that evening.  She climbed the outside stairs and fumbled through her bag for the key; when she found it, she slipped it into the lock and let herself into the dark sitting room.  

Flipping the light switch, she glanced around for any sign that Ron was at home.  She didn't see any, nor did she see any sort of note or explanation for his whereabouts.  She decided to phone the diner after she changed out of her work clothes.  She knew theoretically that nothing bad had happened to him, but she couldn't help but feel a bit anxious when she didn't know where he was.  

She dropped her keys and bag onto the sofa and walked toward the back of the flat where the bedroom was located.  The door was shut, and she opened it cautiously, an unfounded fear settling lightly inside of her.  To her surprise, though, Ron was sitting on the bed with his back facing her.  He jumped lightly at the sound of the door squeaking open, and he spun around to face her.  She watched wordlessly as he let out a sigh of relief that the intruder was her, but her heart stilled slightly when he reached up quickly to brush something away from his eyes.  

"You startled me," he said briskly.

"Why are you just sitting in the dark?" she asked, evading his comment.

Ron shook his head dismissively.  "I just woke up from a nap."  
  
She glanced at the bed and noticed that none of the pillows or blankets were mussed, so she knew immediately that he was lying.  She chose not to comment, though, and instead she just nodded and said simply, "Oh."

Ron stood up and reached over to turn a lamp on.  "So, how was work?"

She shrugged.  "It was a little slow.  Sort of boring."

He nodded wordlessly.

"What time did you get home?"  She tried not to make the conversation sound so forced, but it was difficult.

It was his turn to shrug.  "About six, I guess.  We were slow, too."

"Ron, why were you sitting in the dark?"

She surprised herself by being forward enough to launch straight back into her original questioning, but she wanted to know.  She wanted him to trust her enough to tell him.

"I told you I was napping."  
  


"Why won't you tell me the truth?"

"You're saying that I'm a liar?"  He sounded offended, and he stared at her slightly in disbelief.

She sighed softly.  "No.  I just want you to be honest with me."  She looked very pointedly at him.  "You can tell me anything, you know."  
  
Ron looked away toward the window.  "You know Mrs. Alvarez?  The woman downstairs?  She fell and twisted her ankle today; they had to take her to the hospital."  
  


"Ron."  She looked at him sharply.  "Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"

"Why does something always have to be wrong?!" he exploded.  "And why do you have to be so bloody nosy all the damn time?!"

Hermione stiffened in shock.  She forced the hurt she was feeling to stay hidden and not show on her face.  She responded the only other way she knew how to; she yelled right back.  "Because you're too bloody stubborn to admit when something's bothering you!"

"Hermione, leave me alone," he said warningly.

She rolled her eyes in frustration.  "That's always your answer for everything, isn't it?  Just leave it alone."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She just rolled her eyes again.  "You're not that thick, Ron.  Figure it out."

He was silent, assessing her briefly before looking away again without a spoken word.

Hermione, in defeat, just shook her head silently and turned to leave the room.  He stopped her, though, by speaking softly.

"It's been a month today."

Hermione halted her exit and slowly turned her head to face the back of his.  The words ran threw her like a chill; _how _could she not have noticed that it had been _exactly _a month?  It had totally slipped her mind.  Her breath caught in her throat as she realized that she had absolutely no bloody clue what to say.  

Luckily, he chose that moment to turn back around and continue speaking.  His voice was little more than a whisper, but she heard him perfectly.  "That's why I was just sitting here in the dark."

And then Hermione did the only logical thing that she could think of.  She crossed the room in three steps and wrapped him in a warm embrace; it was the only thing she had to offer him, but he seemed to melt into it.  Within seconds, she felt him hug her back, and they stayed like that, just holding each other, for a long time.

"I really miss him..."  His voice was so weak, so incredibly open and honest, that Hermione found it pitiful, and she had to fight to keep her tears from falling.  

"I know," she whispered back, burying her face deep into his chest and inhaling his scent.  Just knowing he was so close was as much of a comfort as she could get, and she felt him mirror the action as his face disappeared into the top of her hair.

"Why did this happen?" he asked desperately, his voice so full of emotion that it was unnerving.  "I still don't understand..."    
  
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut against the choked and pained sound of his voice.  She could feel the agony he was feeling just by listening to him speak, and she'd never been more frightened in her entire life.  She shook her head slightly, whispering a quiet, "Me, either."

She felt, rather than saw, the first tear he shed as it dropped onto the top of her head and slipped down her forehead and cheek.  He was crying.  And all she wanted to do was make him stop.  

"Hermione..." he choked on her name, and she felt his body tense as she wrapped him even tighter.  "I...  I just want it all to stop."  His words were airy and chopped as he continued.  "All of it...  All of the feelings... and memories...  All this hurt...  I just want it to go away."

He was shaking in her arms, and the only coherent thought she had was of making all of his pain disappear for him.  He'd saved her enough times; perhaps it was time to return the favor.  She leaned her head back slightly, causing him to raise his own and meet her eyes.  She could see to the depths of his soul in that blue, and she knew that it was with complete inhibition that he whispered, "I just miss him."

It was without hesitation or second thoughts that Hermione gently raised herself onto tiptoe in order to brush her lips against his.  She wanted to make his pain go away, and the only way she could rid him of his demons was to attack her own at the same time.  After their lips brushed each others' for a second, they parted, and Hermione lowered herself again, looking up and meeting his eyes again.  "I miss him, too," she whispered, letting him in completely as he'd done for her.

And then he was kissing her.  Deep in her mind, she knew that this made no sense.  Giving into something they'd been fighting for so long wasn't going to cure either of them.  It wasn't going to stop the memories or the pain.  It wasn't going to bring Harry back.

But it was helping.

Hermione's eyes fluttered closed the second he lowered his head and breathed against her lips.  And when he pressed his own lips to hers, she felt the rest of the world slip away.  In that moment, there was no one else.  There was only them.

And nothing she'd done before had ever felt as truly right as this did.  One of his hands tangled into the curls at the back of her head as he kissed her.  It started out gently, but his desperateness soon shone through, and she lost herself in the moment, giving herself over completely to him.  She had nothing else to offer him, so she surrendered herself.

She felt the return offering in the way he kissed her, the way one hand clung so desperately to the back of her head, and the way his other hand slid down her neck and rested on her shoulder.  

And when he broke away from the kiss only to lean down and place his lips next to her ear, she thought she would die from the simple pounding of her heart beating so close to his own.  

"Hermione, I love you."

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Heeheehee!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ah, I'm evil!  I really need reviews because the next part is scheduled to be more "adult," and I want to know if that's what you guys want.  If you'd rather it be tame, then please let me know.    
  
I'll write what you guys want!


	7. Chapter 7

A/N:  Thank you, thank you to all of the wonderful reviewers of the last chapter.  You guys are the best!

  
Disclaimer:  They all belong to someone who is not me.

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_"Hermione, I love you."_

The words went through her like a shot.  If it weren't for the fact that she had a supporting hand on his shoulder, she might have fallen right over.

He loved her.

He _loved _her.

He loved _her._

Of all the four letter words she'd heard Ron utter in the seven years she'd known him, love had never been one of them.  Unless, of course, he was referring to it in a sentence laden with the words "Cannons," "Quidditch," or "Chocolate."  But he'd just said it in the same sentence with her name.  

And she thought she was going to die.

Never before had words affected her like those four had.  Someone loved her, and it wasn't just anybody.  It was Ron Weasley.

The last person she would have expected and yet the only person she wanted.

As her eyes fluttered shut at the feel of his lips pressing against the area of skin just below her ear, she wondered what was happening.  It was almost as if she were living in an alternative universe, as if none of this was real.  All of this was a dream.

She was at Hogwarts, tucked away in the library studying for the N.E.W.T.s.

Ron was sneaking into the kitchens to nick food from the House-Elves.

Harry was out on the Quidditch field preparing for the upcoming match against Slytherin.

She wasn't a teenage runaway who was being forced to live in near-poverty.

Ron hadn't just whispered that he loved her.

And Harry wasn't dead.

None of it was real.

But it was.

Harry was dead.  Ron had just told her he loved her.

And it was at that moment that her mind decided on its own accord to stop thinking all together.  Instead, she focused all of her energy on just feeling.

She felt the way he was gingerly kissing her earlobe.  She felt the way one hand rested against her neck as the other sat unmoving on her shoulder.  

  
And she felt _him._

She felt all of the emotions that he'd worked so hard to hide.  She felt them being released away from him.  And all of the emotions made her heart pound and dull all at the same time.  She felt the stress of being on his own for the first time in his life.  She felt the comfort he was drawing from having her so close.  She felt the guilt he was holding for reasons unknown to both of them.  And she felt the pure, undiluted pain that wrenched at his heart and soul.

"Oh, God..."

The words were more gasped than spoken, and even she herself had trouble deciphering their origin.  It was a mix of the shock she experienced at feeling his sorrow and of the pleasure she experienced at feeling his lips sliding across her throat.  The feelings coursing through her weren't like anything she'd ever known, and, as a curious person by nature, she wanted to learn more.

She wanted to find out why he was feeling so much guilt.  She wanted to convey her understanding.  She wanted to be the one to relieve him of all the heartache and pain that was tormenting him.

But she never, ever wanted him to stop loving her.

He was kissing her again, and she gave herself over completely to the moment.  For a few moments, she allowed herself simply to be caught up in the revelry of being kissed by him.  It wasn't like anything she'd ever felt, and she knew at once why she'd never allowed herself to get seriously involved with anyone else.  She'd kissed Ron twice before, and a handful of other boys made up the rest of her kissing experience.  All of the other boys, though, weren't Ron, and for that reason alone, she never enjoyed being with them.  They didn't make her feel the way Ron made her feel; they _weren't _Ron.

And he was the only one she ever really wanted anyway.

Kissing Ron wasn't even about the actual kiss.  It was about the fact that they were two people who had nothing and yet everything in common.  They were best friends who had each lost a part of themselves one month before.  Neither of them had anything, but yet they were surviving.  

And they each needed something to hold onto, so they might as well choose each other.

_That's _what it was about.

But then Ron broke the kiss and let go of her, taking an anxious step backward and darting his eyes away from hers as they fluttered open in confusion.

"What..." she struggled to get her breath.  "What's wrong?"

He looked at her as if he were deciding the fate of the world, and then he shook his head.  "We shouldn't do this."

It literally felt as if her heart was crumbling, and she stared at him wordlessly for a long, long moment before she managed to speak.  "Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?" he queried carefully.

Hermione closed and opened her eyes all within a second.  "When you said you loved me.  Did you mean it?"

Ron was silent for far too long a time, and Hermione felt tears threatening to fill her eyes.  She felt crushed and beaten and all wrong.  Until Ron finally whispered an answer.  "Yes."

It was soft and quiet, but Hermione heard it nonetheless.  Her eyes raised to his own, and she stared at him, looking for any sign that he was deceiving her or having her on.  There was none.  

He was telling her the truth.

And before she even knew what she was doing, she'd closed the distance between them and was kissing him again.  There was a driving need inside of her now.  A need both for her and for his benefit.  She needed him to take away her pain, and she needed to be the one to take away his.  

But Ron broke the kiss again and pushed her away slightly.

"This isn't right."  

  
His words hurt her in so many ways, and she forced herself not to cry.  "What isn't right?" she demanded, her voice wavering but not breaking.

  
He looked at her, and she caught a glimpse of the hurt she felt mirrored in her own eyes.  "I meant it."  That was the answer he gave her.  It made no sense to her.

"If you meant it, then what's wrong?"

Ron's eyes darted to every corner of the room before seeking hers out again.  His voice held more emotions than she'd ever been privy to, and it frightened her.  "It's wrong because I _did _mean it," he said, his voice straining.  "I meant it.  More than anything in my life, I meant it."

He sounded so desperate, so lost and confused.  Hermione couldn't stand it.  And she was more confused than ever now.  "That doesn't make it wrong," she said hoarsely.  "What are you talking about?"

Ron looked as if he was fighting an internal battle against himself.  Finally, he seemed to have lost to the deepest corners of his soul, and he just confessed himself.  "I said it because it was the truth.  I didn't say it to get anything out of it."

The breath caught in Hermione's throat, and she felt herself start to tremble slightly.  She stared at him with open and inviting eyes, waiting for him to go on, begging him with her eyes to continue.

He swallowed deeply before taking a deep breath and venturing further.  "I said it because it was true, not because I wanted something.  I'm not like that."  His eyes implored her own.  "You know I'm not like that."

And she did know.  
  
Ron might have gone through his superficial teenage boy phase a few years before, but he was over that now.  She'd observed him with all of the girls he'd ever dated, and though she knew he was never _extremely _interested in any of them, he'd never disrespected any of them in any way.  His mother had taught him better than that; he'd once said he wouldn't treat a girl in any way that he wouldn't want some other guy to treat Ginny.  

And for that reason alone, Hermione trusted him.

She trusted him with her friendship.  She trusted him with her life.  She wanted to trust him with her heart.

"You don't have to prove anything to me, Hermione," he said softly, his eyes darkening to a considerably deeper shade of blue.  

  
And it was with that sentence that she decided to offer him everything.  "And you don't have to prove anything to me."

He studied her intensely, his eyes piercing into her as if searching for some hint of hesitation.  Finally, he seemed to have found his voice again, and he carefully worded a question.  "What are you saying?"

Hermione took a step closer and gently placed her hand in his, lifting her eyes to his and answering him honestly.  "I know who you are, Ron," she said softly.  "And I know this is right."

There was a moment close to eternity in which neither of them spoke.  And then, without warning, tears filled Ron's eyes and he backed toward the wall and leaned against it for support.  His hand still clung to hers as she stumbled forward with him; she knew he was holding onto her in hopes of holding onto something they'd both lost.

And she was okay with it.

"How did this happen?" he asked quietly, his eyes still brimming with unshed tears.  "_Why _did it happen?"

She had no answer for him.  Her head shook slightly as she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him gently as the first tears fell from his eyes.  He was hurting so much.  

And it was up to her to help him in any way that she could.

She turned her head slightly and ever-so-gently brushed her lips against his damp cheek as his head bowed forward to find solace in her shoulder.  She was kissing away his tears, letting him know that it was okay to let everything out in front of her.  She wouldn't judge him.  She never had.

"Let me help you," she whispered softly, letting her lips glide further down his cheek toward his neck.  "Let me make it better."

Ron's eyes were closed, and she could imagine the way he was struggling to give himself over fully to the feelings they were both sharing, but she knew that the pain was also still too fresh and the wounds ran too deep.  Anything she would be able to do would only soothe him; she couldn't cure him.

But somehow it was enough.

Hermione wasn't sure where she was getting the courage to move forward with her intents, as just that very morning, she'd watched Ron sleeping and thought to herself that she would just have to put aside the intense needing and want that she felt for him.  Starting anything at this point would be useless and do nothing but cause them both pain, which was obviously something they already had in an overabundance.  But now, as she stood in front of him and watched his pain flow so freely, she wondered why she'd ever hidden from her feelings in the past.

And he _loved _her.

"Hermione..."  His voice was breathy and thin, and she raised her head up just slightly to look at him.

"Hmm?" she murmured quietly, feeling that she could get lost in the azure depths of his eyes.

He stared back at her, so pointedly and so meaningfully that she almost felt frightened.  "Hermione, what are you doing?" he finally managed to ask, his voice wavering noticeably.

Hermione thought about the question and pondered the answer.  What _was _she doing?  She shrugged slightly.  "Making it better."

She kissed him again, this time losing the softness and tenderness when his free hand sought out the small of her back and pulled her closer as the hand he was still using to hold her own closed even tighter around her small palm and the fingers reached out to brush against her knuckles.  This was a real kiss.  This wasn't a pained kiss or anything else like that; it was two teenagers who had wasted far too much time already kissing to make up for lost moments.  His mouth opened to hers, and she took the incentive to slip her tongue past his parted lips and explore the inner recesses of his mouth.

A moment later, though, Ron pulled his head away and stood back to his full height, obviously trying to distance himself from her.  He took a deep breath and looked very seriously at her.  "Don't do that unless..."  His voice trailed off as if he wasn't sure how to continue that sentence.  He stood in silence, his chest rising and falling with missing breaths.

"Unless what?" she challenged quietly, feeling unnaturally brave.  Perhaps the _true _Gryffindor courage didn't show up until after Hogwarts had been left behind.  
  
Ron's eyes narrowed slightly, as if he hadn't been expecting her to challenge him.  

"Unless I'm ready to stop pretending that there's nothing between us?" she asked smoothly.  "Unless I plan to continue it?"

The narrowed eyes seemed to disappear altogether as his eyes darkened to a color so dark, it was almost past navy.  He swallowed once and then finally gathered enough voice to say, "I've wanted you for too damn long."  She couldn't fight the slight shiver that shot through her at his words, but he didn't stop.  "And I still do.  But not like this."

Hermione wanted to scream in frustration.  She didn't know what she was doing wrong, and she didn't know whether to yell at him or burst into tears.  Instead, she opted for neither.  "Like what?"

He opened his mouth once as if preparing to say something but shut it.  Then he shook his head and continued anyway.  "I don't want you to feel..." he searched for the right word, "compromised."  Hermione's brow wrinkled.  _Compromised?  _"I love you, Hermione.  I really, really do, and that's the God's honest truth.  But I don't want you to think I said that just so you would..."  He broke off, shaking his head.

Hermione felt something in her heart swell.  She had never wanted anything more in her life as much as she did him.  And it wasn't because he'd said he'd loved her, either; it was because he was the only person who had ever been able to make her forget the rest of the world.  And maybe that's exactly what they needed- to forget the rest of the world altogether.

"Ron, I want this, too," she whispered.  "And I promise I'm ready for it."

She actually saw the shot of shock shoot through his body.  She'd never seen anything like it before in her life, and it thrilled her.  He looked lost and found all at once, and his eyes sought hers out with a tender look.

"Are you sure?" he asked gently, once again running his fingers across the knuckles of the hand he still had a hold on.

She nodded, suddenly feeling shy and much more like a little girl than she had five minutes before.  "I want it," she repeated quietly.  "Trust me."  Her eyes poured into his as she whispered one more sentence.  "I trust you."

**************************************

Well, I figured this was a good stopping point because if I'd gone ahead and added the next part, it would have ended up being _too _long.  The next part _will _pick up here, so don't worry.

  
I always appreciate any feedback, comments, and suggestions, so please review!!!


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